uncomfortable

I get uncomfortable
when I smile at car crashes
or see a kitten lying
motionless
and remark how tired it looks
knowing the bi-racial couple next to me
can't hear what I'm thinking
about her insecurity and his
desperation to be seen with her
and how I deny my heritage when
too many Jews in the room
want me to talk about my Grandfather
a man I never knew, much like
his Son who breathed Catholicism
into me each Sunday while joking on the way home
about how many points you got
if you ran over the little black ones
and I laughed, never knowing that one day
the jokes would not be funny and
I would be
uncomfortable

-- Rob Dyer