"Brown Love" by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend Support Poem-a-Day January 16, 2020   Brown Love   Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Brown love is getting the pat down but not the secondary screening and waiting after you clear to make sure the Sikh man or the Black woman or the hijabis behind you get through    Brown love is asking the Punjabi guy working at the starbucks knockoff if all the tea sizes are still the same price and he says no, it hasn't been like that for at least four years, but he slips you an extra tea bag without talking about it.   Brown love is the unsmiling aunty at the disabled immigration line barking anything to declare? No? No? Have a good day. and your rice, semolina, kari karo seeds and jaggary all get through even though they are definitely from countries where there are insects that could eat america to the ground    Brown love is texting your cousin on whatsapp asking if she's ever had a hard time bringing weed tincture in her carry on    brown love is a balm in this airport of life    where, if we can scrape up enough money we all end up because we all came from somewhere and we want to go there or we can't go to there but we want to go to the place we went after that where our mom still lives even though we fight or our chosen sis is still in her rent controlled perfect apartment where we get the luxury of things being like how we remember we want to go to the place we used to live and even if gentrification snatched the bakery with the 75 cent coffee where everyone hung out all night we can still walk the block where it was and remember   and the thing about brown love is, nobody smiles. nobody is friendly. nobody winks. nobody can get away with that they're all silently working their terrible 9 dollar an hour food service jobs where tip jars aren't allowed or TSA sucks but it's the job you can get out of the military and nobody can get away with being outwardly loving but we do what we can   brown love is the woman who lets your 1 pound over the 50 pound          limit bag go the angry woman who looks like your cousin who is so tired on the american airlines customer service line she tags your bag for checked luggage and doesn't say anything about a credit card, she just yells Next! Brown love is your tired cousin who prays you all the way home from when you get on the subway to when you land and get on another. This is what we have We do what we can.              Copyright © 2020 by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 16, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets. About this Poem   "My evolving experience of existing in the policed and surreal environments of airports is a subject I return to often in my writing life, and I wrote this poem in January 2018 after many airport visits in quick succession. All the moments in it are based on real events in my life as a racially ambiguous (but unambiguously brown) queer traveler who frequently crosses borders. This time, I was struck by all these silent, working-class, brown moments of solidarity and witness in the middle of a hostile space where so many of us work low wage jobs. Recording recognition and the relief we carve out of spaces not meant for us is especially important for me." —Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha   Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is the author or co-editor of nine books, most recently Tonguebreaker (Arsenal Pulp, 2019). They are a disability and transformative justice movement worker and educator, and live in South Seattle, Duwamish territories, Washington. Poetry by Piepzna-Samarasinha   Tonguebreaker (Arsenal Pulp, 2019) "if found, then measured" by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo "A Journey" by Nikki Giovanni "Where I am Not" by Omar Sakr January Guest Editor: Meg Day   Thanks to Meg Day, author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A about Day's curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year. A culture break, a source of daily renewal...   If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   Unsubscribe here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038