Miles away from where the Southern magnolias
Dance gaily in Mississippi morning like newlyweds
Far beneath the December gusts of Harlem
That force themselves underneath overcoats
Long ways away from the flattened heat of Houston
Pulling sweatrags from the pockets of preachers
The Baltimore boys balance on the Mason Dixon
Make home and hostel out of hostile humidity
We be far too Southern to be Northern folk
We be far too Northern to have Southern throat
This city contracts and blows out Black babies
In its peculiar bermuda triangle day-by-day
We say Baltimore is in Baltimore when a map spreads
We say Home is in our Homes when the map’s read
But really we saying that we born nowhere and everywhere
That a boulder heaved onto a thumb sized map couldn't hit us
We ain't spent two days alike since the first ship hit the harbor
We ain't spent two days alike since our ancestors went to auction
They say New orleans be half-way haunted, Compton be lazy
But this city be its own sort of assortment of crazy
When summer turns corner we don’t forget who got hollowed
But the taste of old bay kneaded into a bushel be God-sent
For four months we gonna chew right through the smoke
We gonna tell Jamaal do that dance he be doing
If every season is another gasp of life for you and yours
Time starts to become sand in the wind, and location, just a word
Painting by Jerrell Gibbs
