Shane McCrae

Poems about captivity, escape, and the possibility of freedom - Finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Poetry

In the Language of My Captor

Lindsay

I tell him // He is hopeful / He doesn’t fear me

Because I’m different from him but because he hopes

He got me on a level where he doesn’t even have to think

when have you not had to say / Something about white folks to say 

-"JIM LIMBER THE ADOPTED MULATTO SON OF JEFFERSON DAVIS CONSIDERS HIS PLACE IN HISTORY"

Announces his presence with his   demeanor

I don’t know what that means I think it means

-"JEFFERSON DAVIS THE ADOPTIVE FATHER OF THE MULATTO JIM LIMBER DREAMS THE FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY AS HE DREAMS HE IS ARGUING HIS CAUSE IN WASHINGTON D.C."

of the white man but the Negro is strapped

If he would listen I would ask him whether

The power / To enforce alone- ness and aloneness 

In the Language of My Captor

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