Like the Rest of Us

RENÉ SALDAÑA, JR.

April 1, 2020

At the big box store, the girl

behind the register asks

will I take back

my membership card, hold it

up for her to scan, which I do,

and even then she scans it

from a safe distance. I feel

like that one Black student 

who shared with the class

one morning just weeks before

the Towers came down:

he’d written a short piece

about paying an older White

woman with cash and when he

reached for his change back,

she cringed, dropped the coins

in his open palm. He took the money—

a quarter, some pennies, a dime, and

when he got outside the store

he threw it all into the bin and spat.

No, I really don’t feel anything close

to what my student had felt that day.

I’m not made to feel like spitting.

That woman hated him,

for centuries must’ve hated him.

With me, that girl doesn’t hate me,

she isn’t even afraid of me.

She is simply scared,

afraid like the rest of us. 

RENÉ SALDAÑA, JR. is an associate professor of Language, Diversity, and Literacy Studies in the College of Education of Texas Tech University. He is the author of several books for young adults and children, among them The Jumping Tree, A Good Long Way,
and Heartbeat of the Soul of the World. His poems have appeared or are scheduled to appear in The English Journal, The Big Windows Review, and Inkwell Literary Review.