Petition to leave the neighborhood

Petition to leave the neighborhood

Somerville, MA, ca. 1909

They came at night, but didn’t burn a cross,
those well-bred Northerners. Instead they stood
looking apologetic on the porch.
Their leader held a lantern, not a torch.

“Mi scusi, speak the English not so good,”
Maria Rosa said with a smile. But then
they read it to her slowly. Rearing up,
she shook her fist and shouted at the men,

“Leave us alone, or I sell the house to n―!”
It worked. They all turned whiter than they were
and never tried to mess with her again.

Or so my father says. Ashamed of her,
we tell the story with a guilty snigger,
pretending to be shocked. We don’t condone
and yet we understand it. Moving up,
each step she took was someone else’s loss.
That’s life. You gotta take care of your own.