for Frederick Douglass
far from Cedar Hill where I know you,
but across the perilous deep, across a black
atlantic, an arm’s length away from the shore
& blue sky of bondage.
on a road whose name sounds like calamity
or song, gravity’s fall. Here – we both marvel at
our body’s work,
our skin without
our country’s marks,
brown bodies moving, through the Emerald
Isle’s soft, grey fog, unquestioned,
unboxed by America’s Black. I return to DC,
our city feeling unmasked, standing
in front of a mirror wondering
what else I have not seen.
*italics are from a Frederick Douglass speech detailing his visit to Ireland
