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 |