The Beanstalk to the Dark Side of the Moon

Poetry

Photo by Hussain Badshah on Unsplash

~ after Toni Morrison

The dark has many colors,
variations as splendid and mysterious
as the many minds that hold it,
this definition of blackness,
of midnight, of the new moon.
It may as well be a rainbow,
this thing people fear.

America is a good garden
for guns and grave diggers,
things that sprout
like dull and colorless tulips
from soil that never birthed
anything other than blood.

America is just a water mark
left on a mahogany desk
in the vague shape of a tooth,
something that aches
and whispers freedom
beside an inkwell,

a slave holder scribbling
We The People
upon a yellow scrap of parchment,
words barely visible
by candle light.

America is the dream
of owning things,
even people,
especially people,
most of all.