The March Hare

I have been invited by the curators of Mobile's historical home, Oakleigh House, to participate in a very important ceremony there In February. Though the house has been owned by the city for fifty years, they hanve only just opened the old slave quarters and restored them to what they would have been in the 1850's when one family, the Gaythors, lived and worked there.

There are going to be a lot of speakers, mainly community and arts leaders, reading fom newspaper accounts of slave auctions or from slave narratives. And me, ME, their waitress at Janino's, they want to be their 'poet laureate', to write an original piece to read before this crowd of local brass, make them tear up and open their wallets.

Oh, holy crap. Where do I even start? It's about slavery, for God's sake, and also about two people named Sealie and Tom who lived one hundred and fifty years ago. And it has to be good. None of this dashing it off and it's good enough stuff. It has to be something special. And I want it to be good. Who wants to write a shitty poem about slavery?

Excuse me while I do some deep breathing.