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Adapted to the case of Mr. S., Fugitive from Tennessee. I’m on my way to Canada, That cold and dreary land; The dire effects of slavery, I can no longer stand. My soul is vexed within me so, To think that I’m a slave; I’ve now resolved to strike the blow For freedom or the grave. O righteous Father, Wilt thou not pity me? And aid me on to Canada, Where colored men are free. I heard Victoria plainly say, If we would all forsake Our native land of slavery, And come across the Lake. That she was standing on the shore, With arms extended wide, To give us all a peaceful home, Beyond the rolling tide. Farewell, old master! That’s enough for me— I’m going straight to Canada, Where colored men are free. I heard the old-soul driver say, As he was passing by, That darkey’s bound to run away, I see it in his eye. My heart responded to the charge, And thought it was no crime; And something seemed my mind to urge, That now’s the very time. O! old driver, Don’t you cry for me, I’m going up to Canada, Where colored men are free. Grieve not, my wife—grieve not for me, O! do not break my heart, For nought but cruel slavery Would cause me to depart. If I should stay to quell your grief, Your grief I would augment; For no one knows the day that we Asunder might be rent. O! Susannah, Don’t you cry for me— I’m going up to Canada, Where colored men are free. I heard old master pray last night— I heard him pray for me; That God would come, and in his might From Satan set me free; So I from Satan would escape, And flee the wrath to come— If there’s a fiend in human shape, Old master must be one. O! old master, While you pray for me, I’m doing all I can to reach The land of Liberty. Ohio’s not the place for me; For I was much surprised, So many of her sons to see In garments of disguise. Her name has gone out through the world, Free Labor, Soil, and Men; But slaves had better far be hurled Into the Lion’s Den. Farewell, Ohio! I am not safe in thee; I’ll travel on to Canada, Where colored men are free. I’ve now embarked for yonder shore, Where man’s a man by law, The vessel soon will bear me o’er, To shake the Lion’s paw. I no more dread the Auctioneer, Nor fear the master’s frowns, I no more tremble when I hear The beying negro-hounds. O! old Master, Don’t think hard of me— I’m just in sight of Canada, Where colored men are free. I’ve landed safe upon the shore, Both soul and body free; My blood and brain, and tears no more Will drench old Tennesse. But I behold the scalding tear, Now stealing from my eye, To think my wife—my only dear, A slave must live and die. O, Susannah! Don’t grieve after me— For ever at a throne of grace, I will remember thee.

Do you know what’s the unluckiest thing In the world, a differential grasshopper Said to me. I paused, I put down the Diesel grinder I’d been trying to fix, I turned off the stealth bomber, I faded Away from the faded away pedals, I put up Finely embroidered silk panels over the Faces of the statues, I pulled the green Vacillating amplifier into the hallway, I swiveled seven of the chains and Loosened the bolts in the balcony, I went Into the barn to unlace the cattle and Overturn the empty buckets, I put the White flag on the mailbox, I cut the Telephone wires, I fed the ducks better Than I usually feed them, I adjusted the Faucets so they’d drip a little, I waved At old Mr. Wiley with his smokeless pipe And his manpowered plough across the field, I moved a claypot off of a narrow ledge, I taped the key to the bulldozer to the Roof of the canopy, I took the cup of Auger bits away from the rabbit hutch, I put a padlock on the children’s playhouse, I picked up a stick by the sideyard gate, I broke it over my knee, I went to the well To fill a stone pitcher with cool water, I let the donkey & the goats go. I took A ladder to the hayloft and took down a Suitcase. I could see across the valley Down to the river from up there.

for Arthur Sze I. Somehow precise and unquestionable, the cut of the Chinese man’s hair. Never before this certainty, I consider the decision of each strand. The diameter. The angle. So black, the way it appears, crashing against the hard corner of his jaw. II. I consider the darkness. You are appointed court photographer. Consider this picture. III. My small face is red behind a bath towel curtain. I watch a funeral that is taking place next door. So black, my dog, hurling himself against a chain link fence. IV. The casket is lowered and I am removing rusty pins from the grease on the window’s aluminum track, along with strands of hair. V. This is pressing. I mark it with an asterisk. Black and large. VI. A vague feeling, pressing itself against a snowfence in my mind. Like a threat, I view the way you cut your hair as if it were a history of something small.

When she came into his room he was asleep and when she touched him, he woke— her hand on his shoulder, her knee at his mouth, and in the darkness, she looked like a boy. When he tried to sit up she covered his ears with her hands: “Save ourselves from ourselves,” she said, and then a wind stirred in the room as if she’d placed those words in his mouth.

Never were knuckle-men. Choked up on planks of smoke, they haul towards the peplum: stabbing back at time, splinters of it flip like cars. Rolled sleeves, knees cooked, the rousie is flirting with her broom, a blonde with criminal simplicity with historical truth we can detoxify a poisoned planet. Now they’re descending the spirit heap; dribbling pinkies along fair knotty thighs. Children are returning to pick up the butts. Still the brunette is caving in the face of time, is making herself a living treasure from this surplus hour the minutes fly

The volcano in my grandmother's Mexican village smothered the town, though the girl escaped because the axis of revolution sent her family into exile, black clouds covering their journey to the north. The axis of the earth is a skeletal bone extending from pole to pole, the arm of someone holding on. The Japanese earthquake shifted the axis of the earth, moving Japan twelve feet closer to North America, each day shortened by one second. When a poet said the past never happens because it is always present, the other one proclaimed the past is in the future, the axis bending to allow these words to skip the water like stones thrown by a boy in search of his father, the axis of yesterday sinking the stones the boy hurled across the pond.

Baa, baa, black sheep Have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full. One for the master, And one for the dame, And one for the little boy Who lives down the lane.

Some thought it was because of all the babies I suddenly seemed to be having. Others, that I should pay for the damages. Fact is, I wasn’t getting any older, so I bought a small aquarium, and skipped town. Took up with a toy store owner until he left me for a more beautiful robot. Took up with a reader of instructional booklets. Never mind. I was lost. By the time I arrived at Mrs. Greenaway’s, it was clear I was nowhere at all. In exchange for room and board, I’d rearrange her furniture, her birthmarks, her quiet animals, until they took on more satisfying shapes. Sometimes the shapes were simple, like a mustache or a pipe. Sometimes they were more complicated arrangements, like the one of dead Mr. Greenaway’s closed barbershop. Over the years, as Mrs. Greenaway and I became more and more vague, the shapes did too. For identification purposes, we’d give them names like She Wasn’t Fooling Anyone, She Was Hurt and She Was Hurt Bad or The Insides of Doctors. One night when I was working on a piece I thought I’d call Symphony, Symphony, the shapes began to slip out of my hands. At first, as Mrs. Greenaway remembers, the sound of broken glass. Then the trumpets. Then the terrible music of all those babies I once seemed to be suddenly having, marching, like soldiers, in rows. Then their round wet bellies coming towards me. Mrs. Greenaway still talks about how expertly they gathered me into their tiny arms. And how they took me away not like a prisoner. But like a mother. Into a past I still swear I never had.

The baboon is eating strawberries expired on the shelf of the Ft. Bragg Safeway. A coastal landscape with waves like inexpertly torn tinfoil hangs above his left shoulder at the check-in desk of an abandoned motel. The ocean itself is only a sound through a torn window screen where some hardscrabble bush about to flower is just a smell. Will something appropriately random please happen to convince me reality is still playing with a full deck?

Baby ate a microchip, Then grabbed a bottle, took a sip. He swallowed it and made a beep, And now he’s thinking pretty deep. He’s downloading his ABCs And calculating 1-2-3s. He’s memorizing useless facts While doing Daddy’s income tax. He’s processing, and now he thrives On feeding his internal drives. He’s throwing fits, and now he fights With ruthless bits and toothless bytes. He must be feeling very smug. But hold on, Baby caught a bug. Attempting to reboot in haste, He accidentally got erased!