Poem: The Jews of Arlington

The Jews of Arlington

By The Sparrow Goddess
QuailBellMagazine.com

I don't usually learn anything from Washingtonian except where to waste my money.
Glam, glam, spa, spa, click and clack in high heels I put on credit at Tysons Galleria.
Yet today I read an essay in People & Politics that made me spill my $5 macchiato.
It transported me to Arlington pre-Brown v. Board, when the county felt Southern,
not like a regional mutt walking a tightrope with sandbags tied to its skinny ankles.
Title: “Our Own Kind: Growing up Jewish in Arlington of the 1950s meant being
singled out as different—by classmates, teachers, even the neighborhood we lived in.”
While in the sidebar: “7 Must-Have Drugstore Beauty Products for Your Gym Bag.”
I don't need your rants, your instructions, and your exclamations re: my lifestyle.
I need truth and insight and humanity; I need more honesty, more candor.
Tell me how it is to be black today and Latino tomorrow
in this vast suburbia speckled with monuments.