The boxes arrive like secrets
waiting to be heard. The beauty
of forgetting. Memory herded and
exploited the stuff of scholars,
but let’s not neglect the joy
of a blurred-out past. What
did I order, exactly?

The slicing of tape like
ripping cloth. One violent jerk
with a blade. Last time I jabbed
my thumb and bled all over
the fur of my new boots before
I knew of the wound. Some
injuries come like that, stealthily,
all consequence and no memory
of impact.

The time before there was
no blood, just mystery. What
did I order, exactly?

Opening, remembering
— a pre-ordered deck.
The American Renaissance
Tarot. It winks in promise.
Remember? Remember?

It is still a stranger to me,
this collection of 78 cards
but already I thrill to
its character – American,
not Egyptian, not medieval
European. Say it again,
the breath rising, cresting,
enunciating with the power
of recognition, four syllables:

A-mer-i-can.

There’s Harriet Tubman!
Edgar Allan Poe! Oh, and
look, Moby Dick and Frederick
Douglass. One figure
teaches a young Black boy
to read, another upholds
a sacred root. Hawthorne,
Stowe, Harriet Jacobs. They’re calling
to me and they’re calling me
home.

Hello. Been writing a lot and editing even more and they somehow take away from showing up here.

We got a little snow last night. The cooler temps make it seem like December. Almost nothing else does. More on that in the next days.