Q:

A: He ain’t in the photos I’ve seen, but yes, there was a field hand with enough muscle to muscle the land. I’m willing to bet he was blacker than you and me. Once or twice the postman saw him down on his hands and knees in the field, not like someone praying or weeping but someone waiting to be transformed back into a beast. Word was, he snapped and tied the couple up in the barn. (Could be fieldwork inspired in him an inkling of revolutionary violence.)

Q:

A: No, I wouldn’t say that. You seem to wrongly think that I think of him as the wrongdoer in this moral calculus.

Q:

A: That’s my point.

Q:

A: Who knows, who knows. The future came dragging a blue carpetbag up the long, dusty road. In time the night would be pregnant with stars and I would be back to working the earth. Anyway, you can see how what happened to them could be made easily into a song . . .

WE SHOULD MAKE A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT SPADES

And here is all we’ll need: a card deck, quartets of sun people

Of the sort found in black college dormitories, some vintage

Music, indiscriminate spirits, fried chicken, some paper,

A writing utensil, and a bottomless Saturday. We should explore

The origins of a derogatory word like spade as well as the word

For feeling alone in polite company. And also the implications

Of calling someone who is not your brother or sister,

Brother or Sister. So little is known of our past, we can imagine

Damn near anything. When I say maybe slaves held Spades

Tournaments on the anti-cruise ships bound for the Colonies,

You say when our ancestors were cooped on those ships

They were not yet slaves. Our groundbreaking film should begin

With a low-lit den in the Deep South and the deep-fried voice

Of somebody’s grandmother holding smoke in her mouth

As she says, “The two of Diamonds trumps the two of Spades

In my house.” And at some point someone should tell the story

Where Jesus and the devil are Spades partners traveling

The juke joints of the 1930s. We could interview my uncle Junior

And definitely your skinny cousin Mary and any black man

Sitting at a card table wearing shades. Who do you suppose

Would win if Booker T and MLK were matched against Du Bois

And Malcolm X in a game of Spades? You say don’t talk

Across the table. Pay attention to the suits being played.

The object of the game is to communicate invisibly

With your teammate. I should concentrate. Do you suppose

We are here because we are lonely in some acute diasporafied

Way? This should be explored in our film about Spades.

Because it is one of the ways I am still learning what it is

To be black, tonight I am ready to master Spades. Four players

Bid a number of books. Each team adds the bids