Dear Robert, Dear Redbeard, Dear Specter of the Great White Father, Dear Slaveholder, Dear Confederate Captain Captured at Gettysburg, Dear Dispenser of Land Favors Semen, Procreator of Twenty Children by Three Sisters Simultaneously, Dear Father of the Negro League Pitcher, Dear Farmer Schoolmaster Landlord Hired Hand Grave Paler Log Roller Surveyor and Manure Shoveler, Dear Singer, Dear Churchman and Circus Fan, Dear Reveler at Brigade Reunions, Dear Collector of Sentimental Poems about Loneliness and Redemption, Dear Pointy Eared Like Lucifer and Bearded Beyond Rasputin, Dear Mythical Jim Crow Defier, Hero of my Grandfather’s Childhood, Who Took Him on the “Whites Only” Section of the Streetcar (He Claimed This Really Happened) Proclaiming “These Are My Grandchildren & They’re Sitting With Me!”, Dear Diarist, Dear Widower, Dear Lonesome Hunger, Dear Admirer of Well- Formed Women, Dear Inscrutable in the Tintype Beside Your Favorite Half-Claimed Child, Dear Tallier of Payments Debts Work Days Weather Conditions Neighbors by Name and Race, Dear Borer of Wells, Dear Master of Omission,
This poem first appeared in Descent (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2020) and is republished here with the kind permission of the author.
