This is one of a series of poems exploring Manhattan’s African Burial Ground. Learn more.
For Jupiter Hammon, whose gravesite has still not been determined
Scrupulous, astute: to the City he was sent
(by) and sometimes went (with) Master
Henry to shoehorn deals. He could have
sallied there in death, carted to the Negro
Burying Ground: his demise unrecorded
and grave unmarked (his days? an edited
epic of scotched left and right edges)
Spirit slinking from Lloyd’s Neck
to a New York City when it should
have just scorched his master’s land.
Copyright © 2018 by David Mills.