Poetry

The Greeks and Romans believed it:

Nebuchadnezzar stared while the prophet blazed.

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them,

The Silk Road never came to Cleveland.

Outside my window, the bushes have turned, redder

September’s end 1877,

When I say poor, I mean we drank powdered milk,and our meat slid from the can in jellied squares.I mean our TV always showed black, white, or greyeven though the screen promised technicolor.Inside me, color flourished, each ray a wild band,a length of the spectrum. Bent and separated,different shade

I lingered for hours beneath the gray sideshow canvas,

Horse latitudes, Mason Dixon. Tropic

Slaving captains…sometimes tried to avoid arrest by a mass drowning of every slave in the cargo.