Sugar Sensei

It started with Cain,

Raising cane, chopping cane,

stripping cane, drying cane,

Sugar Cane.

Green fading at each step,

to yellow, then brown,

then stripped and barren white.

Cane born in slavery,

ends there too.

Brown skin in yellow sun

Reflected Green

sweaty,

Never ending supply

Carted over blue seas

under blue skies,

red against the chains

rope burns - blood red,

bodies floating, distended

but cane crystals,

sugar white,

in neat stacks,

reflecting the sun.

55 pounds a year

per person, white,

in the morning,

in the coffee

in the cereal,

in the snack,

in the ice cream

Snickers, Good and Plenty,

Diabetics, legs severed at the knee,

scar-red, gangrene.

puffing tendrils of hazy steam,

colorless.

Green fading at each step,

to yellow, then brown,

then stripped and barren

slaves breathing

Green fading at each step.