for Leah Jervis
What is Dutch
for twice removed
from home?
The twin of étranger
playing in sublingual spaces
of the Higher Education
that made us speak fondly
of citizenship
in the New World.
Why is the comb of this city darker
than the one I use
in my hair?
I travel with the comb
my grandmother handed
down to my mother,
and she to me
in her brown hands.
Downtown does not look like the downtown we know;
mannequins behind glass are dressed in ethnic prints.
Downtown people act surprised when we laugh—
make Black noise, smalls about
yesteryear’s dasheen and banana trees,
the big dogs that threatened to tear our flesh
in our own yards.
Forensic eyes trace our steps
backward, to the point we arrived,
just to be sure.
Just to be sure we do not form congress
in this fogged empire
we’ve passed over before.