Poetry
It Wasn’t Until Rachel Dolezal That I First Heard the Word Transracial
Jonathan Fletcher
issue three
So many lies,
mostly little and white, have I told
about so many things.
One truth, though, I’ve never tried to hide.
Why bother, when it runs
the length of my body,
covers every inch of my skin.
Or when dark locks
sprout from brown, stick out
amongst lighter heads.
Not liking what I see when I close
the medicine cabinet, what to do
but to smash the mirror?
If not my adoptive mother,
whom to help me clean up the reflective mess?
As we gather bits
of brown and peach, she tells me
that I’m beautiful.
Though I want to believe
what I can’t see, I’m also sure
glass doesn’t lie.
a child of one race or ethnic group placed with parent(s) of a different race or ethnic group (Castner, Jessica, and Karen J Foli. “Racial Identity and Transcultural Adoption.” Online Journal of Issues in Nursing vol. 27,1 (2022):5).
About the Author
Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which he will have his debut chapbook, This is My Body, published in 2025. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.
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