UMBRA E LUX

Ive been spending a lot of time lately in the types of places where Gatsby murders happened,

At night, by the expensive pool
a near stranger tucks several hundred dollars
 into reflective barely clothing
 designed to glow from within the dark,

Then I wake up in time to drive in traffic 
to that place between East and West Egg 
where the shiny motor oil seeps into the grey water.

Out here in the dirty wilds of a concrete jungle,
Adorned between  undying plastic plants:
There are still billboards anchored by ungodly eyes,
There are still men cheating on their wives,
Or wives  moved by careers roped into 
extravagant weddings the first place,

You in flattering  black and I in translucent white
Class divides still multiplying strong,
And color coded bathrooms in the front and back of house, 
Though they aren't labelled explicitly in such words.

I ain't never  speak no evil,
Yet I see everything,
 and I'm learning to hear everything
The synergistic corporate speak broken down into South American wisecracks aboot the same fucking thing
Over and over in my thoughts
And under my midtoned skin like an ironic hell.

The prodigious son of my owner smiles widely at me every morning,
And his pupils dilate against the paling green of his eyes
as he tells me how calm my presence is  in this whitewashed place
But he doesn't know my anger simmers deeper below my surface 
And I can not extinguish it's righteous reasoning,
Any more than he can his hunger for more of all of it to burn

Privilege is invisible to all who have it,
The birthright that flows involuntarily through your blood 
It beat your heart against its golden cage
Until it washes the gilt from where it rusts

A few times a week I tell someone 
That Im not really from here. 
And whether they've known me a while,
 or a new face, they always feel it's worth a mention
Oh yes, you seem to speak a little differently,
I crack a  smile that still reaches your eyes,
The way I practiced it in black mirrors.