we were forced
to acknowledge
that all along
the way, black
and white had underlied
by default
our perception
of every shade of gray—
and that, no matter
how enlightened, being
"part of everything"
still entailed a separation.
While we waited
for our breath to come back,
we finally made
the calculation: for all
the elevation
we felt we'd hard-won,
we had taken the gentlest
possible slope
to the top
of the locally-
tallest mountain.
