Holy City: Charleston, SC by Valerie A. Smith

I was once free to give and let live until the tides turned

ship after ship against my shores, ripping my sandy skirt,

shredding me like blades of Bermuda.

This womb survived like a twin grabbing his brother’s ankle,

fighting for birthright over a bowl of she-crab soup.

I never said welcome when they entered spilling souls.

Militant is my middle name for battling malaria

against the massas and the missuses. Grandmothers

used to call me a haint, and here lies Princess Xualla.

Welcome, and we become each other’s suicide pact:

I’ll die if you die. That’s what he must have said

when he cut Christ down at Mother Emmanuel.

You say I am your favorite place to visit, and I laugh

because I’m in your feet standing on my shoulders.

I’m in a hundred thousand pairs of daylight eyes.

Spend the weekend wading through my bones. My bosom

gleams moist with milk. My babies, snake-bitten, drowned

by Ashley & Cooper. Listen to the wind weeping.

I serve a meal so rich in blood you might become cannibal.

So fed up with the change of my complexion, I can’t afford

to look you in the mirror. Return to Folly.

My blueprint reads like Smalls and Equiano calling

from the earth. Four hundred years later and I

am the closest you’ll ever get back to Africa.

Valerie A. Smith speaks on behalf of those who do not have a voice. She earned the MA in Professional Writing at Kennesaw State University and now studies poetry in the PhD program at Georgia State University. Her social media handles are www.facebook.com/ValerieASmithPoetry, @valeiresmithwriter, and @valeriepoetry.