Roundness Carries

Women and men looked on stars from slavers – just

a couple of times, aboveboard. How their horizon

curved back toward what they knew, then forward

to Lowcountry rice. How their bellies shrank concave,

their minds convex with imprisonment and flight.

How round a hole in the ground where there still

was ground. Over us, a discernible pattern of spirals

and swirls enchants as glittering tails swing and sting.

from Ground