At a dinner in one of the high class hotels downtown
the waitress looks familiar. When the two of you
get a chance alone in the hallway you catch up
briefly on what you’ve been doing since
high school. Before rejoining
your table she asks how
you got invited
there. She asks
if you noticed you
were the only black one
there who wasn’t part of the staff,
if you knew you were their way to pay
the token.
Deonte Osayande is a former track and field sprinter and writer from Detroit, Michigan. His poems and essays have been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology, a Pushcart Prize and published in over a dozen different publications. He has been a member of the Detroit National Poetry Slam Team multiple times. He’s currently a professor of English at Wayne County Community College, and teaching youth through the Inside Out Detroit Literary Arts Program.
A Quiet Courage 