“Some Other Race” Playing catch with some unknown uncle while in the house everyone is dancing to Marc Anthony. And later, I’ll go back to mom and the stillness of Mahler and grandpa’s words, "You’re white, that’s it.” Some other pitch I catch in stride to the cross- section of father’s wish, “I just want him to have blue eyes, blue eyes.” When I go inside and see an old lady on the table she pulls me up and teaches me to salsa. My uncle later says, “That rare synchronicity of family in rhythm.” Though I was happy to leave, go back to mom that gave dad the only thing he wanted: offspring with the right to check “white” before “other,” though others are all he made.
—Submitted on 09/26/2022
Ryan Clinesmith‘s poems have appeared in Heavy Feather Review, First Literary Review-East, Blueline Literary Magazine, What Rough Beasts, Prospectus, and other journals. He holds a BA from Emerson College and an MFA in poetry from Hunter College.
Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.
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