Child's Passage

A dark-skinned teen and white parents
travel the rails from coast to coast,
following the trail of a Buffalo Soldier.

We see his hat with a bullet clean through,
shoot first, ask questions later.
At Mt. Rushmore we'll surely snap a picture

of the four faces being eroded by the wind.
We'll go to Graceland to see the costumes Elvis wore
when he pocketed southern black soul.

Also in Memphis, the Lorraine Motel,
where the real King went out in glory.

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Ellen Foos is a senior production editor for Princeton University Press. She is the founder and publisher of Ragged Sky Press and was the recipient of a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony and the Vermont Studio Center. Her first collection of poems, Little Knitted Sister, was published in 2006 and her poetry has appeared in U.S. 1 Worksheets, The Kelsey Review, Edison Literary Review, and Sensations Magazine.