The White Iris Beautifies Me

Not the white of hard-won cotton,
or of pitiless snow—

I’ve found a whiteness
that gives me its glory;

it blooms
in Master Bellemare’s garden,

and though it is, by all accounts,
untouchable,

quiet as it’s kept, I’ve carried it
into the shabbiest of cabins,

worn it as I witnessed
the slave-breaker,

the hanging tree;
in dream-snatches

it blesses me, and I become
more than a brand,

a pretty chess piece:
at the mistress’s bell,

always prudent and afraid,
wily and afraid—

And when the day comes,
my rescuing flower’s name

will become my daughter’s;
a freeborn woman,

I swear,
she will never be shoeless

in January snow.
Bold Iris,

she will never fear sale
or the bottom of the sea.