Privilege
Flagged - Words in Exile: Entry 6
This word was flagged by the U.S. government for erasure in 2025. Click Here. Or not.
privilege / i just can’t watch the news anymore. she says it over oat milk. the news she can’t watch is children. the news she can’t watch is a hospital the size of a city block turned to powder. we don’t get to turn it off. the news sits at the table. it eats with us. it names what will be taken next. it’s just too much for my mental health. mental health is the new cathedral. mental health is where she goes to not think about the bodies. the bodies are under olive trees. her grandfather did not serve. her father did not serve. her brother did not serve. there was always a letter. always a doctor. always a knee, a back, a flat foot, a semester abroad that ran long. the paperwork came through. it always comes through. paperwork is where her people are most themselves. the treaty. the deed. the quitclaim. sign on the dotted line. it will be fine. meanwhile every man in my family served. every one. the uncle who came back wrong. the cousin who did not come back at all. the grandfather whose lungs were a map of someplace he was not supposed to have been. she does not know this. she does not have to. i don’t see color is the same sentence as i can’t watch the news. both mean my eyes are a country i get to close. she has somewhere to go. she has always had somewhere to go. the farm in vermont. the place in wyoming. the cousin in lisbon. the second passport in the drawer. the drawer in the house no one can take. the house deeded. clean title. clean record. clean break. clean is the whole inheritance. nothing burned it. nothing took it. nothing said leave it. we have to go now. she gets up from the table. she walks to the kitchen. she opens a jar of olives. castelvetrano. she does not think of where they came from. the kettle already warm. loose-leaf tea. something green. something she does not name. she does not need to. paperwork loves her. she loves it. every form says yes. paperwork for us was never a door. it was the taking.
privilege / the ivory bookends were my great-grandfather’s. the horses are promised to beatrice when she turns twelve. he says it the way other people say salt. pass the salt. his baby photos in a leather album. moroccan. hand-tooled. his mother’s baby photos. his mother’s mother’s. four generations of soft chins, hair ribbons, a name that stayed the same across the whole century. the same name. say that again. the same name for a hundred years. nobody clipped it at ellis. nobody burned it off a baptismal record. nobody said this will be easier to pronounce. nobody handed his grandmother a new mouth at the border. we have one photograph. creased through the face. someone’s thumb over her mouth. we don’t know the year. we don’t know the dress. the house is gone. the name went with it. what we have: bad lungs. a startle in the bones. keep your papers close. leave early.
privilege / the plumber is late. she is livid. livid like a bruise beneath gold leaf. the kitchen smells of new appliances and the cleaner who comes tuesdays. she tells the phone: not acceptable. what is acceptable to her / the world arranged like a dinner service. forks to the left of the plate. the plumber’s truck idling in traffic she has never once sat in. his knees. his knees. does she know the word for a man who kneels all day inside the houses of women like her. she does not. she will not. the word is not plumber. the word is older. the word is what her grandfather called the men who built the wall around the orchard. the pear trees- pyrus communis still bearing. still hers.
more words in exile below
These verses left me rapt
You are truly a gifted writer I look forward to reading every time you post