A Backwards View

(on micro-aggressions)

It’s odd to reflect in hindsight on
the little hatreds that emerge
in little words and reassurances.

The Australian teacher who told me
that I should be grateful to be called
a pervert, since wouldn’t gays be happier
if they identified themselves as such?

The same woman who’d say
that certain stereotypes have weight.
(‘In corpses, dear, perhaps’
would be the ungracious reply.)

Who said that Jews
were sometimes greedy Jews,
claiming dental care as charity relief
and then swanning off in fur coats.

I picture her watching angrily,
through those spectacles of hers,
a woman wrapped in furs
walking down an alley towards
a Rolls Royce where her husband waits.

She’s stood at an upper window,
decked out in dental scrubs
(despite having been an English teacher),
watching all the throngs of scum,
the Jews and gays and bad women,
and proudly feeling tolerant.