A Second Opinion
1619. 1776. 1865. Because of these, I am.
A rope rocks empty in the wind somewhere
in Sumter because it never loved me. Maybe
life is all fire and parlor walls—still I go on
dreaming of writing a Green Book for the stars;
take me to Mars and tie my tongue up in tectonics, then
let me be redshifted into oblivion. This much I believe:
the future doesn’t have a price (yet); a place is not
who owns it; no book will make you love me.
1955. 1965. 1987. My heart is the space between
boom-bap, dap, and desperation. Sometimes I dream
of a Blacker me, and I know it is a dream because I can’t
see faces clearly in dreams but I know a nesting doll
just like I know the panic of a dream ending from its rush
and repetition. The night sky and the Earth go on lying
back and forth to each other and from where I sit
between them I learn that stubbornness won’t make me
love me either. 1996. 2001. 2012. A road runs north
from Langdon because it desperately wanted me to be.
This much I know: a place is more than its truth; some
people have always known freedom; they aren’t
the only ones fit for it.