Prejudice

The black handpiece swings like a Negro hanging there.

Dully I watch it, wonder, blink, and stare.

Yesterday as we talked of colour and of race:

Would she marry Maori blood? Why yes of course,

If her love was strong—with firm-jawed pride.

Our love was strong and so I, testing, lied.

Just now she rang. She said it was all over.

She must have talked it with her mother.

"There's someone else!"

The dead phone hangs like the love we knew,

And I ask "am I 'unbiased' too?"

— Ivan Cash