“Slant Eye - An exercise” by Sandra S. Newton

Sandra S. Newton

Slant Eye* An exercise

You say you want to stroke my long black hair But that only makes me want to move Farther from you sitting here.

You say you feel nothing but love For my tawny sun-browned skin Yet I know in the dawn it will hardly live.

One thread unraveled from this skein Will show the slanted eyes that close Because what they saw in scan

Was nothing gained; here we only lose What once we held, what now is held from us With sweet seductive lies.

We have slanted eyes Jap Chink Flip Gook And all the rest: Look! The yellow menace The kung flu How do we go back where we came from?

*Slant rhyme: near rhyme, usually the same consonants but different vowels. Eye rhyme: words that look like they rhyme but don’t in sound. Terza rima: triplets rhyming aba bcb cdc etc. In classical poetry, iambic meter.