Away

Signs welcome visitors

across the Powhatan.

On this side of the river, I’m told,

is T-Jeff’s poplar forest retreat,

and, past that, Sheetz and Liberty.

They serve plantation mint tea here,

where I hear the nearest Black woman

through my headphones. I sit wordless

at the name of this place. Lynchburg,

christened for a man who led mobs

under a sun so hot it burned white.

It’s local tradition to bow at graves that name

the dead. Snakes hide in wild violets,

while I sit lakeside and see my body in water.

We seem to have the same storm each night,

that leaves the air drenched when it ends.

I go to sleep knowing people lie

in the ground below me. When I wake,

I’ll find my way back to the trees,

where nothing rises up

like morning mist.

“Away” (2020) — Agnes Scott Writers’ Festival Magazine