in the moments before dawn you’ll hear whispers: haunted breaths
that scrape your neck like glass fingernails, razorblades in the liminality of time;
the music in your ears will ring like church bells and
crack like porcelain spoons in ceramic hands. the clouds will call your name,
dip it in the sea and stain it grey, and you’ll wish you could get it back
but you’ll find yourself muted, your vocal chords tangled,
knotted, and slit by stiffened swords in the arms of the enslaved. Cape Horn beckons
and we pretend not to hear. Senegal polishes her silver knife & I pretend that I am not unfaithful to Alexandro’s memory. if there’s no way
to unlock my wrists then don’t bother looking for land, just turn
my vessel around and let my eyes search for the gaze of the mountain. if there’s no way
to silence my mind then don’t bother whispering in my ears,
don’t be naive,
don’t play games with me unless you can dock the ship. when the clock turns three,
go tell Bartholomew he can take my body, it’s not mine and
I don’t want it anymore, the blood on my neck may be my blood but
it belongs to the blade, so tell him,
turn my bones into skeleton keys and Aranda will show you the way.
I’ll follow your leader if you follow me, I promise,
I promise, I promise unbroken dreams in Delano’s unbroken hands. although
my wrists are bound by plastic chains, I’ll still tell you
to watch your step because the planks beneath your feet
are echoing with the phantoms of lost crowns whether or not you can
feel the spirits in the air. you can’t see but your jeweled massacres
have bled into the suds twined around your neck,
My Dear Amasa,
I wonder what you’d say if you knew that
there will be no sunrise.
inspired by melville's benito cereno