Race Asana Poem by Romella Kitchens

Race Asanas

(The Wightman Center)
The body shifts itself and then away, to where the spirit resides.
You enter there as if it were a house of brilliant sunlight with many
Rooms where no one hungers or weeps.
Close your kind eyes.
Sethubandhasana, Dhurrasana, Bakasana.
Women, man, even a society that indentifies entitlement with race also indentifies with
cruelty and vapor.
Dark wields a scythe through the daylight permanence, aspects of condition wrestling
with it above our heads, at varying junctures above our integrity.
A snowy day, the vault above the car shifted, as we traveled across sheets of ice then,
She pulled off to the curb further up on Solway street, her White eyes and face averted
from me, the hard scent of liquor on her breath and told me…During this "free" ride
the contents of her psyche…
"Romella, " she breathed out moist mists of air, her face red from the frigid
temps and no heater working in her car, "It is only fair to tell you that the instructor for
our yoga class does not want Black students in her class. She had Blacks as servants when her
husband was in the army in Hawaii and she thinks of Blacks in a certain way. It would be much
more comfortable if you simply were not there. There. I've said it."


Ice swelled in my chest. That vault of dead things opening. Like a dull, gray winter sky.
"But, Hawaiians are not of African descent. They are Polynesian. My family also had natives
of the island help around the house, when my father was stationed there. He was a sergeant.
My parents loved them. They were all equals. They did not think of them in this ugly manner.
They were her dearest friends.They went to dances together and watched each others children. She
did their hair."

"Romella, " she spat, "I am simply telling you the facts. There are many Yoga classes in
The African American community, I would assume. Many."
Then the car started. We pulled off.
Pleasurable breathe for her.
Cracking ice beneath tires.
Pain in my emotional chest, the dark passing over head like the shadow of confederate flags.
I stopped attending.
Five dollars a class.
Such a nice "clean" building.
The phone calls came assuring no prejudice asking why I would not return.
Those averted, White eyes and beliefs.
I purchased flowers and a better mat then did my Yoga, at home…
Content and not dissected by temporal hatred, temporal maturity.