The Historical Talisman

The linoleum and floor boards open in the childhood home
of my family.

From beneath the tiles and wood emerges the
slave ship of our collective history.
It is hurtled and shoved on the violent waves and
through the schools of sharks.
It trembles on the urgency of the electric Atlantic
Ocean.
We huddled in the chains of life in America.
Fatherly grief language was different than motherly.
Daughters already violated.
Deaths through lack of submission to force all around us...
Sons not accepting their lineages connected to sisters
or brothers through blood leaning only on their direct paternal.

Our auction is everyday life in environs not truly selected.

The sails flap like whip lashes.
The ill leave their bodies and spiral up into the heavens.
The image of true home is a blur etched in the sand and earth of life when docked from suffering for this while or that.
Words we spoke are still threatened from our throats, educated into a denial.
The slave ship sits coldly still in a centuries old harbor, docked—waiting for more of those like us to be embarked.