Stepping On Snails
Sylvia Byrne Pollack, a cancer researcher turned poet, has been published in Floating Bridge Review, Crab Creek Review, and Clover, among others. A two-time Pushcart nominee, she won the 2013 Mason's Road Literary Award, was a 2019 Jack Straw Writer and will be a 2021 Mineral School Resident. Her debut full-length collection Risking It is published by Red Mountain Press (2021.)
By Sylvia Byrne Pollack
Bred to be racist,
swaddled in white,
nourished on milk
from anxious breasts,
I left home not knowing
I wore contact lenses,
believed I was 100% truthful
when I swore I saw no difference
between myself and the occasional
black girls I met. How then to explain
the visceral cringe when a black man
walked toward me?
I’ve worked to remove that cringe,
root it out, stem and leaf
but it wants to grow back in this
nourishing American soil.
Words Matter vs. Word Smatter
Knee redefined as noose.
It’s not a new thing and it’s deadly efficient,
doesn’t require a tree and a rope.
It only takes hate. Hate and swagger
and a little pressure on the back
from the rest of the guys. For them,
was it like the frisson I felt when
I stepped on that snail in the garden,
“saving” the vegetables and flowers?
I’ve learned to act otherwise,
Can the cops?