Apology in Seven Tongues

Diana Senechal

I. Brass

Come with me to the basement. You’ve been fired.
Take all your things with you: your shoulder bag,
your jacket, any coffee mugs or photos
brought in over the years. Leave all the rest:
that’s right, your ID (we’ll take care of it),
your notes, the laptop we signed out to you,
the manuscript you edited by hand
and called a work of promise. And your name
emblazoned on a strip of brass. By noon
another name will take its place. We’ve found
a new, well-vetted editor-in-chief;
moreover, she won’t be the sole decider
of literary merit, but a team
will work with her to help assure that we
remain in step with the evolving times.
Down in the basement, you may take as long
as needed with your penned apology.
(Why bother, you might ask, now that I’m canned?
Feel free to leave without taking this on,
but know that if you shirk it, your career
is toast. I’m not suggesting we will hire
you back—we can’t—but if you show you’re sorry
in the accepted ways, someone somewhere
might give you—cautiously—another chance.)
While you labor below, Pete the guard
will keep watch over you. Security
precautions, nothing more. Should you need air
or water, he will handle your requests,
and when you’ve finished, he’ll escort you out.
Leave when you wish—but better if you stay
past 3 p.m., since that is when the team
will polish it for publication. Surely
you’d like to have a say in the last tweaks.
By 5 p.m. we’ll publish it online.

II. Editor

A poem I accepted
later went viral because
the poet made mention of
someone else’s color but
not her own whiteness. “A black
man held the door,” she observed
about a Georgia wedding,
not admitting to her role
in this oppression.

I took the lines as subtle
commentary on today’s
racist structures, but because
she did not explicitly
call herself white, the poem,
they tweeted, undergirded
the system, as did I by
printing it without stating
my condemnation.

Had I said, “This racist verse
appears in print so that all
the fragile elite will see
the violence privilege
wreaks against the dispossessed,
and by ‘privilege’ I mean
all white poetry to date,”
I might still be editing
august Pelago.

Why must I apologize?
I did what befits my work:
chose a piece I thought was good
in its entirety. Sure,
a line or two, singled out,
may hurt a hundred feelings,
but who has never been hurt
by art? Draining it of pain,
you mute its muses.

That said, my boss has a point.
Fighting back hurts me alone;
being fired is punishment
enough. I never thought I
would mince my words for career’s
sake, nor have I until now,
but no one will thank me for
obsolete integrity.
Pete, I am ready.

III. Security

A long time ago I was Mr. Barnes,
before this job. I don’t mind “Pete”—
we’re on a first-name basis here,
and up to a point, that’s fine by me.
This friendliness can drain the soul,
but otherwise my work is light.

Respect, what are you? I’ve called to you,
thinking you’ll answer. You speak the tongue
of lava and mountains.

Treat each man
as though he were a vault of nature.
Keep back your hands—don’t come too close,
give him his vastness.

Little I know
of his material and mind.
Each man’s a sorrow. Can I measure
mine against yours? Can I know yours?

But now they’re puffed in ignorance,
screaming online for his demise.
Strangers, even.

And why this man?
The day we met, he asked, “How should
I address you, sir?” The first time I
had ever been asked. “Just call me Pete,
I said, “if that’s the workplace norm.
When you’re in Rome….”

I guard the doors,
but in my soul I’ve joined with them,
a furtive reader. I love the kind
of poem that keeps me up at night.
I read that poem one night. So did
my wife. We argued for an hour.
I pushed, how is this racist when
it says a black man held the door?
That’s brutal truth. I’ve held white doors
my whole life long.

Why call him black?
she countered.

Maybe to show the scene
in its true colors.

But why is ‘white’
not mentioned? Why is it just assumed,
as though humanity were white?

He’s a black man, I said. A man.
Human as anyone.

Don’t you feel
the sting? His color yelling out,
I’m here to serve?

Perhaps. I hear
a streak of loneliness as well,
a loneliness not so remote
from mine or yours. A loneliness
belonging not to me or you
but to us all, each privately.
But come, it’s been a long, long day.

We found each other’s arms. At last
I understood. A little mark,
a sting on the breast, nothing mortal,
but when they add up day after day,
your whole life long….

That is why
poems guard time: they wait for us.
That’s why I wait for the midnight hush
and read Dumas into my sleep.

IV. Twitter

More racist crap from Pelago magazine. #canceltherag

“My dress flowed perfectly and blue. A black
man held the door. A well-rehearsed sashay….”

retweet
retweet
2.5K retweet (influencer)

I never liked that editor anyway. But now he’s toast. #nofiringnopeace

He’ll be gone in a week. You’ll see.

Sorry, but in that case what’s the future of literary journals?

CONCERN TROLL ALERT

Retweet: CONCERN TROLL: see this liberal bullshit?

Retweet comment: Shut the f*** up you trumpsucker. #funnyme

10.8K retweet (major influencer) 2K love

From an email he sent me 10 years ago:

“We strive to make this a journal of diverse voices.”

Strive? Strive this, #frogwad.

(if you don’t get that meme, you’re not worth my time) #frogwadignoramus

5.2K retweet (thanks to the hashtag and its attending backstory,
too much to get into here, but involving several threads of
celebrity tweets and some microdrama on a large scale)

He’ll be out of there in three days. #twitterpower

what about the poet?

Who cares. She’s a nobody. The poem’s been removed
from the Pelago site. But anyway her page has 120 likes. Irrelevant.

We’re gonna change the face of poetry
starting right here. #jointherevolution

10K retweet 1K love

V. Poem

We came to Braselton from Hackensack
to celebrate my cousin’s wedding day.
My graceful entrance covered up my lack.

You must wear gossamer and pearls, and pack
a racquet too, in case there’s time to play.
We came to Braselton from Hackensack.

My dress flowed swimmingly and blue. A black
man held the door. My well-rehearsed sashay
(my graceful entrance) covered up my lack.

Though Mom’s in debt to Lowe’s and Freddie Mac,
we had the means to put on a display.
We came to Braselton from Hackensack

but spoke in soft lilts, not that bric-a-brac
we use at home. “So nice to meet you, May!”—
my graceful entrance—covered up my lack.

They married, and I lied. When will it crack,
my mask? when will I feel the golden ray?
We came to Braselton from Hackensack;
my graceful entrance covered up my lack.

VI. Team

Good for you! You thought twice!
And your letter’s really nice.
We will tweak it here and there,
But that only means we care.

we all think you did an impressive job with your first draft just a little tweaking in order here you said throughout my ten-year tenure at pelago but you can’t say tenure because some people will take it to mean that you have tenure which means you can’t be let go but you can be so you just have to say throughout my ten years at pelago

See the edit? Now it’s great!
Now it’s sweet as cho-co-late!
Still there are some errors here,
Which the Team will gladly clear.

you say i strove to make the journal a lively diverse literary forum but now i see that i was operating from a presumption of whiteness that sounds self-pitying you have to be forward looking so it will read i strove to make the journal what i thought was diverse but now i know that my conception of diversity was rooted in a structure based on systematic othering that must be dismantled without delay so i am grateful that the team going forward will not only take over my work but transform it along with the editorial role itself

Did you hear! That’s a meme!
Nothing better than a team!
Go, Team! Lead in glee!
“I” forever cedes to “We”!

and now we need an explanation of the above namely decisions of acceptance and rejection as well as editorial suggestions will no longer lie with a sole individual but will always be performed by the team so that we can test each poem carefully against our collective mindset

moreover each team member is urged to report anything in current or past issues that might raise concern as we reserve the right to revise any of our publications in light of changing perspectives we don’t mean we will change anything that was written before but we do reserve the right to remove it

Let no verse elude our eyes
That a tweet might criticize.
Yank it out at once, as though
It were just an old scarecrow.

and now your apology which must leave no room for interpretation we changed it to this i apologize for the pain i have caused not only by publishing racist poetry at a particularly fraught time but also by exercising authority that should never have been mine and pocketing a salary in short i can never compensate for the harm i have done

Say these words: I was bad!
And I made you people sad.
I am sorry that my deeds
Stink the air like rotten reeds.

my three gestures are the bare minimum and just a beginning first i am leaving my position of my own will so that someone better versed in the moment can take my place second i have withdrawn my own book from circulation so that others can be heard and third i am donating an amount equal to three of my paychecks to support the struggle against systematic othering what you think that’s extreme compare that with never getting a paycheck again

Say: My end is just a start,
Given how I damaged art.
I now give back what I stole,
Hoping to remain half whole.

and finally something about poetry if you would like to change this at all let us know throughout the ages, poetry has shown not only resilience but a capacity for revolution i look forward to watching this revolution unfold and will help it with donations and study

Poetry – oh do I have
To say this? They will only laugh.
Yes, but now you’re almost done.
Hail the re-vol-u-ti-on!

please direct any inquiries to the team that’s part of the letter just so they don’t ask you what happened we will answer any questions about it

Ask the Team and only us!
We will fix your fears and fuss.
There’s no truth, no worth, no gleam
To be found outside the Team!

and now sincerely and your signature

pete he can be escorted out now

VII. Apostate

I left the team because it rolls in its saliva.
It licks the lacquer on a box of lies.
Unlock the lies, and smoke
will swirl, and the team will start to end.

It is always unlocking, always starting to end.
Show me a person who sees through the whirl.
The world holds two or three,
while the rest of us thrill in our fires.

Fires that take on as many forms as we have fancies.
I look at you and flatten you to death.
A country stares at you.
It gets fat on its own smoky glare.

Am I better than what I criticize? Not a whit.
Priding myself on distance from the throng,
I have hurled taunts at those
who band together for company.

They in turn have lampooned my solitary manner.
You are out of touch, they say, an unhooked
scarecrow flailing its arms.
You have no clue about the moment.

How easy to find and fling those words, how difficult
to listen for the ictus between them,
the beat of deities
tapping behind our monstrous sureties.

Patroklos, dying, replied to Hektor’s gloating speech:
You may boast now, but little do you know
that death stands close to you
and dust already covers your words.

Call me an enemy of the team, but the phrase will
swoop down upon you, turning you into
itself. Take care lest you
end up the sorry ward of your word.

As for this apology, it does not bow to you
or ask your forgiveness. Its ancient sense
will break open in time,
and time will pour rubble on us all.