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  • Jacob Lawrence Ekphrasis:Frederick Douglass Series
  • F. Douglas Brown (bio)

Panel 28: This High Carnival of Crime

"He come/ in the night,/it be dark, no moon.

He do some/ funny things/ to me/(weren't mischief)/ then he die/ in my arms."

—Dolores Kendrick, "Lucy Sleeps with Master Muford"

Fire licks dance,rage and raise armsto God, begging mercyfor our unfortunate skin.

We burn the night sky black.No stars break this July craze. I covermy children's eyes so not to seetheir uncles, their preacher,

their teacher, their grandma,or their playground neighbors, allfunny things now gone, all tied highto a tree, or a post, or open window.

O how we hang as ourhomes and orphanages andour churches become a mischiefof ash and rumble.

O how we hangas war wages and frustrationpoints a tattered fingerat those war seeks to protect. [End Page 117]

Few of us hide in shadowedcrevices. For days we make littlemovements, small scants from my blood-red dress or our shallow breaths betray.

I drift and become a tulipon the grave of every draftdodger roaming the streets.My small stem and leaves

mark a place where a death angellanded. Vindicated, the good booksays as we dream & wait, as we watch& behold doom exploding around us. [End Page 118]

F. Douglas Brown

F. Douglas Brown is the author of ICON (Writ Large Press, 2018), and Zero to Three (University of Georgia, 2014), winner of the 2013 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, selected by Tracy K. Smith. Brown holds fellowships from both a Cave Canem and Kundiman.

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