Juneteenth

Imagine the funerals in Texas

when people had to stop pretending

other people were property,

two and a half years stolen

as lagniappe for the poor masters,

powerful men menacing

work from exhausted souls carrying generations of grief,

(a raft on a river

children taken from parents,

one Mississippi

mothers sold on the block,

two Mississippi)

men’s eyes prowling,

lusting dusky bodies,

lingering on lips,

breasts, thighs,

and hips, lascivious thoughts

of what could be engendered there,

(wall still burning, Mississippi burning, Henry Clay and Agamemnon deader than ever, Clytemnestra and Antigone, too, Medea’s chariot in the sky)

Potential purchase provides permission to touch, prod,

inspect the goods on offer

assess the flesh

palpably.

It’s only rape if a

(mockingbird

Black man lays eyes

mocks

on a piece

swan)

of a white man’s

property, a proper

house slave (Desdemona)

daughter of

a good property-owning family,

auctioned presented at cotillion,

a debutante bill of sale (ball with proper dance cards)

draped in pearls,

(that were his eyes)

wearing white again,

out, damned spot

registered and

carried over the threshold:

mysterious mistress of the manners

pleasing her new master:

hosting,

boasting

about her powerful husband

(Delilah snips a lock)

who thinks life

is for the chosen:

of course he’s won.

A merchant chooses caskets

(Pandora boxes).

An asp hangs in laurel, suspended.

The women in Texas

(Eurydice’s lover’s lyre

muting Cassandra)

await have to become

their own Paul Revere, probably

on the dirty-first

of another jeweled lie.

Persephone peels a pomegranate from Adam’s throat.

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