Partying Where Slaves Picked Cotton

I went to a going away party
the other night where slaves
were once kept, housed, held 
captive, forced to work.

During festive times, cookies,
warm drinks, bourbon, as people
conversed, had time to unwind,

the wind blew outside. A wind
coming from ancestral spirits,

from days when being owned
was the norm. 

We laughed, shared, were merry
right on grounds where people
were grouped and paraded, like 
jewelry, to be shown, then
shoveled 

to their "rightful places." This was
a matrix, a moment stuck in 
yesteryear where my people,
elders, cousins, kin were taught to
fear, forget about family, watch

loved ones be sold down the river.

A woman, the renter of the property
in its modern existence, told me, 

"My friend stays down there in the
former slave quarters."

How does that even happen?
How does he feel? Does he
ever hear whispers of former
slaves when he's deep in 

his sleep? This shit is deep!
Is creepy, is beyond me, is 
beyond any history book, is beyond
conversations about slavery, ownership,
ancestry, bondage, how wretched chattel 
slavery was. 

We partied the night away. 
I stood on sacred ground. We moved on
into the night.

I don't even know how
I even slept that night.