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Giving Mary Grace


For Mary Turner


History will submit to you | I will too |


Eventually when we are color-pleased | when your dirt speaks |


I will be left | dumb-still |


I won’t refer you back to life |


There’s been enough of that |


I falter | in guilt | at your reanimating |


Now I am trying to unbeast you |


Having walked with myth and imagination |


I thought I counted every stone. The walls |


grew closer |


| I walk in a terrible circle |


Should I quiet my poet, yes |


I wanted to die too, yes |


But concealed that adolescence | like a hymn |


through me |


Through me wasn’t always the answer |


| I am black people |


and am a series of decisions |


Shall I let my again speak for me, no |


Agains stain the clear water |


Can I offer you up to speak, if |


Only if | you are compelled to |


I wasn’t finished with myself, I |


Where story and desire | collide |


with terrible friction |


How full of stories are you, many |