He has 

              sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people

He has plundered our

                                             ravaged our

                                                                   destroyed the lives of our

taking away our­

                                 abolishing our most valuable

and altering fundamentally the Forms of our

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for
Redress in the most humble terms:
                                                                Our repeated 
Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration
and settlement here.

                                    —taken Captive

                                                              on the high Seas

                                                                                             to bear—

Copyright © 2018 by Tracy K. Smith, from Wade in the Water. Used by permission of Graywolf Press. All rights reserved. www.graywolfpress.org.

Fuss, fight, and cutting the huckley-buck—Dear Malindy,
Underground, must I always return to the country of the dead,

To the coons catting about in the trees, the North Carolina pines
Chattering about sweetening bodies in their green whirring?

Do these letters predict my death—some sound of a twig
Breaking then a constant drowning—a butter bean drying

Beneath my nails? Casket, rascal, and corn bread cooling board.
Dear Malindy, when the muskrats fight in the swamp I knows

It’s you causing my skull to rattle. You predicted my death
With my own baby teeth and a rancid moon beneath our legs.

No girl, my arm still here. The antlers on the mantle yet quiet.
All the ocean’s water without me and yet in me. Never mind,

Malindy. They already shot the black boy on the road for dying
Without their permission. Yes, gal, I put on my nice suit. And wait.

Copyright © 2013 by Roger Reeves. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on November 11, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.