White lies

2/6/2021 White Lies by Natasha Trethewey | Poetry Foundation

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58265/white-lies 1/2

White Lies

B Y N ATA S H A T R E T H E W E Y

Natasha Trethewey, "White Lies" from Domestic Work. Copyright © 2000 by Natasha Trethewey. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press.

Source: Indivisible: Poems for Social Justice (Norwood House Press, 2013)

The lies I could tell,

when I was growing up

light-bright, near-white,

high-yellow, red-boned

in a black place,

were just white lies.

I could easily tell the white folks

that we lived uptown,

not in that pink and green

shanty-fled shotgun section

along the tracks. I could act

like my homemade dresses

came straight out the window

of Maison Blanche. I could even

keep quiet, quiet as kept,

like the time a white girl said

(squeezing my hand), Now

we have three of us in this class.

But I paid for it every time

Mama found out.

She laid her hands on me,

then washed out my mouth

with Ivory soap. This

is to purify, she said,

and cleanse your lying tongue.

Believing her, I swallowed suds

thinking they'd work

from the inside out.

C O N TA C T U S

N E W S L E T T E R S

P R E S S

P R I VA C Y P O L I C Y

P O L I C I E S

T E R M S O F U S E

P O E T R Y M O B I L E A P P

2/6/2021 White Lies by Natasha Trethewey | Poetry Foundation

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58265/white-lies 2/2

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