Tehmina Khan
ENEMIES
What might save us, me and you,
is that the Russians love their children too.
--Sting 1985
I see you, white man,
driving your pickup truck
down small town roads
with confederate flag blowing in the wind,
flashing a toothless grin.
I see you see me, brown woman,
riding a bicycle down city streets,
stopping at the Farmer’s Market,
speaking Spanish with the Mexican farmer,
saying Salam Alaikum to the
Ghanaian baker,
filling my bags with fresh deliciousness.
I see you tell your sons
to “man up!”
shouting the little boy out of them.
I see you see me
coddling and cuddling
my boy who towers over me.
Did you ever hold your babies?
Rock them when they cried?
Can you see me loving my brown son,
wearing a hoody, looking like Trayvon?
Can I see you loving your white son,
carrying a tiki torch, or carrying a gun?
Previously printed in Essential Truths: The Bay Area in Color,
Pease Press, 2021.
Reflection Questions:
Which historic events does "ENEMIES" refer to, and how do they set the tone for the poem?
Who do you see as "enemies" in your community, and who might label you an enemy?
Who typically has to work twice as hard as others?
What are the systemic barriers that create this imbalance of some needing to work more or harder than others to get by?
Twice as Hard
Your grandfather knew, in 1963,
that he had to work twice as hard
as any white man to make it half as far.
So he did diligent research
that boosted the work of established professors,
while he raised his family
on poverty-level stipends
from one post-doctoral fellowship
after another.
In 1974, he took an industry job
to make a stable home for his daughters.
Being a brown girl,
I knew I had to work
three times as hard,
but I didn’t want to do it.
I wanted to dream.
He took me to his lab
and showed me liquids
in beakers and test tubes
and dry ice
evaporating into a white mist.
I was never very good at chemistry.
Obama is the son he never had, your grandmother
told me, when we hoped against history.
The man of color who worked twice as hard
and got to be president,
and still, we know, only got half as far.
The president, a father of daughters,
who said, If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.
He’d look like you.
Your seven-year old self
saw your own face in the face of the president.
Your fifteen-year old self
sees your face in the faces of the dead.
And now you face a face of one
who worked half as hard and got twice as far.
A face that disparages your face,
your name,
the direction of your prayers,
the four boxes you check
on your ethnic identity forms,
the fusion meals, hot and spicy,
you cook without recipes.
And your bargain is the same as your grandfather’s.
Work twice as hard.
Go half as far.
His hard work travels with you
in your veins
under your skin.
Previously printed in Civil Liberties United: Diverse Voices from the San Francisco Bay Area, Pease Press, 2019.
Tehmina Khan is a daughter of Indian immigrant scientists who has spent her adult life writing, teaching, resisting, and mothering. She has taught science to preschoolers, citizenship to octogenarians, and poetry translation to elementary school students; she currently teaches College Writing at UC Berkeley and Poetry for the People at City College of San Francisco, where she defends everyone's right to a quality education. Her work has been published in Poets 11, Written Here, OccuPoetry, CCSF Forum Magazine, Civil Liberties United, The City is Already Speaking, Essential Truths, and Muslim American Writers at Home. She lives on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land, commonly known as San Francisco.
