Loving

By Michael Stalcup

“Anti-miscegenation” laws prohibiting interracial marriage were constitutional in the United States until Loving v. Virginia (June 12, 1967).

I

look down at my warm brown hands
and hold in them the thought
that my own parents—Mom,
an immigrant from Thailand,

Dad, a white man born in Kansas—
grew up in a time when plenty
folks who looked like them
were not allowed to wed,

their loving still prohibited
by law. I came just decades late
enough to miss that hateful show
and only later came to know

that inconceivable reality
that would have barred my breath
before I had begun to breathe—
its sharp blade missing me

by less than half a century,
less than a lifetime wedged
between loving my life
and never knowing it.

And knowing this reminds me
this has never been my home,
for I am imaged after One
whose birth was heaven kissing earth,

whose eyes of fire will one day burn
and bend and break systemic
swords like these, remixing,
making them into his plowshares,

making way for people
planting seeds.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

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Michael Stalcup is a Thai-American missionary living in Bangkok, Thailand. His poems have been published in Sojourners Magazine, Commonweal Magazine, PAX, Red Letter Christians, and elsewhere. He co-teaches Spirit & Scribe, a workshop integrating spiritual formation and writing craft. You can find more of his work at michaelstalcup.com.

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