Challenged

 
I remember once
A police officer
Came to our
Class to speak
Of why we
Should never thieve
Never take
Especially from stores
What did not belong
To us
For it was not right
But wrong

I remember
Also
Us asking him
Questions
At the end
Of his presentation
I do not recall the other queries
But this I do
And here I'll relate
I asked him
If it was
Ever all right to take
For to my child's mind
Already was I
Concerned so for others
That it seemed to me
That if a mother
With children to feed
And no money
Had great need
Then feeding those children
Outweighed other concerns
And must be addressed
Thus, this was the question
I posed that poor hapless
Man dressed in officer's blues

To his credit
He did not give
A hasty and ill-considered answer
But to my intense frustration
At the time
He gave none at all
Acting as though
I had not made such a query


I told an older and wiser and, yes, white friend once
Of this story
She looked at me
And said upon learning his ethnicity
Oh, dear, what a conundrum you
Presented him with
You, a small black girl
Asking
Him, a white police officer
Such a question
He did not KNOW what to say in reply
How you must have challenged
His thinking that day

I had never before
Considered his race and mine
As part of the equation
After all,
I was but a small child at the time
Those permutations
Along with so many potential others
Infiltrate my mind
These many years later
I can only think now
I must have wholly nonplussed him
What a thoughtful, kind man he was
Sensitive enough not to engage
A wee girl in a philosophical debate
Nor shoot her down entirely.