Minnesota 1945

And this is what she told me,
 And this is my story
 I was born in Minnesota in 1945
 and there were guns in Northern Africa
 and guns in central Italy
 There were men in the South Pacific
 losing their lives
 My mother was a black woman
 and my father was a white man
 And in the middle of a Midwestern winter
 they took cover in the night
 And he fumbled with his apartment keys
 and she searched for conversation pieces
 And they sat down in his living room
 and the world disappeared
 You are the burlap sack, You are Indian silk
 You are the terror and comfort of night
 You are white and black, and I am chocolate milk
 I am the breadth, and you are the height
 You are all of the evil and the kindness I have seen...
 and I am the in-between
 And they talked about injustice
 And they talked about freedom
 And they talked about Hitler
 And made love to piss him off
 And they talked about forgiveness
 And they cried for their loneliness
 And they talked about belonging- immigrant lives
 Chorus
 And the snow raged past the window
 And they held on to each other
 And they stared out at Minnesota
 And everything looked the same
 And this is what she told me
 these many years later
 I was born in Minnesota in 1945