From Their Side

I'm feeding some kids, skin brown
as mine or much darker,
some of whom have mothers
who care about them just like mine,
who live in houses just as worn or more so,
just as infested with shameful insects,
just as tense with the uncertainties of need.
I'm feeding some kids just like me.

Yet when I set before them
the carefully considered meal,
fettucine (al dente)
in a rich alfredo sauce,
their noses wrinkle, puzzled, turn up
as they eye the creamy substance
and accuse me of offering them
a pan full of mayonnaise.

Could those few thousand dollars
that divide our parents' paychecks
or their deeper shade of brown
or their street-flavored dialect
really stand so tall between us?

The alfredo sauce only exists
on my side of the wall.
From the other side, their side,
my magnificent feast looks
like the efforts of a madwoman
who ruins good pasta
by slathering it with mayonnaise.