Warehoused

‘Hard Times’ is now a nightclub

 

in The Streets and an old song

 

on my new radio

 

as I notice my view

 

for the first time this year:

 

It is nearly spring, March blowing winter away

in blustery wisps discernible on threadbare branch.

 

Under the bridge are centuries-old warehouses

where slaves or Union soldiers and spies

were perhaps housed with the tobacco.

 

I realize anew the wide river that is there

still for me to marvel at the motion

of simple brown water crested with

shallow white water going — which way?

I know, but still there seems to be

some rolling, raging force in its midst,

drawn strongly upstream.

 

I look away quickly, eyes resting on

the blue flag of this fortress prison,

and notice the flesh tones of the antagonists

on the seal. Pale cousin conquering cousin, in color. . . .

 

On the far bridge a yellow bus is out early,

and I remember the gauntlet I braved

to reach the sanctity

of the back of the bus, pushed there

by the overwhelming might

of Majority.

 

A pioneer in pride, certain my desegregation mattered,

I am shamed by capture before being humbled by servitude.

 

My warehousing evinces such a design

as to put you in mind

of the mouth of this James

where we were first swallowed,

way down-river from these warehouses

on the bank, here.

March 1984