The Southern Porches of Our Youth by Leslie Williams

One reason for the imagination is worship, to conjure into being the beings not here.

The Southern Porches of Our Youth

by Leslie Williams ¹

---

                           Romare Bearden, Tomorrow I May Be Far Away


The word collage comes from the French coller,
          to glue. Sticking together is what 
we do, exiles assembling ourselves in different 

cities, pasting the private history of me 
          into the broad story of you: migration 
North from dirt yard & wash tub, always the need 

for bare feet on packed earth, aching 
          to go forth from rural South, though impossible 
once and for all to leave it, high seat 

of the imagination, knowing what hands remain 
          in the window, the moon-shaped nails, a face
with one eye looming, the other turning

inward. One reason for the imagination is 
          worship, to conjure into being the beings not 
here. Your art is ruthless, Romare. May I call you 

that? You’ve rendered us so perfectly, dreamers 
          waiting on money for ghost railroads, 
for rooms in tenements to open, for traveling 

clothes and a decent pair of shoes. To be old 
          enough or brave. To escape with the scraps 
we have. To save the blue shirt evidence 

of sunlight, net of crow & fence. One foot out 
          and one foot in, pieces stuck in competing 
patterns: a far-seeing, forlorn hint of sky-

scraper making the shape of your nose. 
          Slipping on its echoes. God! It’s all that 
waiting. If we could put on the blackbird wing’s 

red epaulets, we’d fly away and be at rest
          from all the longing that lets light dapple us.
The woman reaching through the window is always 

trying to hold us, trying to hold us back. 

1. https://www.nga.gov/artworks/119052-tomorrow-i-may-be-far-away