-first published by Jenn May in SV 2002

I’ve been stolen, been slaughtered,

I’ve conquered and courted.

I’m the thread in your american quilt

The story Grandma was sure not to tell you.

No I’m not from your tribe I’m from thousands

Crushed and classified by a government overseen

By a president whose blood, too, races in me

And if you look hard down the dirt road of my past

You see sharecropper’s cabins and homes built to last

In new jerusalem city

What do we name this new child?

Uncle Tom or First Warrior,

bastard or the product of love’s labor?

© Jennifer May 2002