Bond, Nicole 2022
Dear White Couple Who Have The Black Pre School Aged Child,
We don’t know each other, but I see you in the neighborhood, usually at the bus stop in the mornings.
It’s hard not to notice a white woman and man walking with or pushing a Black pre-school girl in a stroller, up and down a Chicago South Side street. It’s an off-putting precursor to what will inevitably be the same wave of gentrification that crashed over neighboring Hyde Park.
– Nicole Bond, “Signed, A Little Old Black Lady”
Sunlight shines through the window on her plastic Aldi bag
…facing front…moving forward…traveling backwards into canned quicksand.
Behind her stands a man at the door
…his plastic Save-a-Lot bags on the floor, parked between black-laced Nike’s.
– Nicole Bond, “Crossing the Desert”