I sat with my white professor
the other day,
He said I’d write a great “tome?”

I said,
“How can I write that,
When I ain't got no home?”

He looked at me quizzically
and said,
“Son, of course you do!”

I wondered…
He continued…

“Journals and papers,
and conferences too.”

I said,

“How can I get in, since I don’t look like you?”
He said to me then,
(A compliment I suppose)
“But, you speak so well!”
I said,
“Pray tell?”
He mused rather quietly.
(Then, in his head, a bell!)

“Well anyway…

Boy don’t let that bother you!”

I bristled,

then smiled,

And said to him

“True.”