A Thousand More

                   Free your mind and your ass will follow.
                                                              – Harriet Tubman

Maryland’s bare back is a canvas for propaganda: flanked in showy
goldenrod, studded with French mulberries; Chesapeake sweet water,
satin for soil. Funk from the field’s choke and wild petunias collected
in jars make the quarters feel lived in even when no one’s been there
for hours. Raccoons whistle through switchgrass tapping tiny holes
in the dark. All the muscle from the day’s work stretches into song
and string, one wide-open drum with hands muting its mouth.
Voices kindle a half mile from the big house, hidden from the light
of the moon. Just eyes, and teeth curved into grins, then only the
night on their skin.

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