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  • Mrs. Douglass Wakes Early:Lynn, Massachusetts, 1846
  • M. Nzadi Keita (bio)

one dream walks toward me in his old clothes: blue stripedshirt, denim pants. his frown draws a thick rainand clouds drop, covering his head. we drift in whiteto another time. his black collar jacket risesoff the bed and he grows to life inside. a hand-sewn,finely-fitted shirt shows, creamy under hisvest. I fall against a feverish tree. knowingbefore knowing. once it beginsto starch my fingers, once it begins to pucker,I leap away. some gentle voice slaps me downwhen I come, carrying his tray. assures me it will get hotter,hotter, claiming heat will show me all.blowing across a yard in Rochester,an odd place I seem to know where voicesfull of story leak out of lost ships, bloodsurprises. painting the stovenearby. painting my poor yellowroses, now awake and forced to catchthese red slaps, forced to swallow."dear Douglass, what an unkind dance,"I remember thinking.looking up. sooty blood and bloodysoot at the hip. half his body swingsand half just gone.parts of him droppingonto my shoulders. tomorrowcaught in his lips. a hairy fingersnags my apron pocket. [End Page 16]

M. Nzadi Keita

M. Nzadi Keita (waterdawta@yahoo.com) has read her poetry in universities, prisons, kindergartens, and on public television. Her work has appeared in publications such as American Poetry Review, nocturnes literary review, and the anthologies The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, Beyond the Frontier: African-American Poetry for the Twenty-First Century, and Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam. Some of Keita's most fruitful research on Anna Murray Douglass has taken place while visiting Douglass's grave in Rochester, sitting on her porch in Washington, DC, and walking the Baltimore harbor. Keita teaches at Ursinus College.

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