Poetry

The first horn lifts its arm over the dew-lit grass
and in the slave quarters there is a rustling—
children are bundled into aprons, cornbread

Waking one morning
we cannot find
Kate or Wesley,
or his cows and sheep,

I just left them there holding their breath,
summer dripping from their honeyed
muzzles. 

It is night. I feel it is night
not because darkness has fallen
(what do I care about darkness falling)
but because down in myself the shouting
has stopped, has given up.