The Peculiar Institution

If the natives

had agreed

to subject themselves

to working under

the white peoples,

no black person

would have seen

the New World

across an ocean

of heartache,

stored up pickled

like mindless commodities

until brought to market

and sent along

a system of slavery

without humanity,

to be sold up and down the south

with the chance to run away,

caught, sent back,

escape, flee all the way north

and still find

that the prejudices

against a people

in an uncomprehending culture

found it difficult

to reconcile

these migrant souls

against their will,

that peculiar institution

and the once and forever

original sin

of these lands.