Track 5
Time Travel at Newark International Airport
Written and Performed By Nordette Adams

One day I thought I might be beautiful.
Two magnificent women, one aging like a well-loved queen,
the other walking in the splendor of young royalty, and
both with skin glowing the color of Vermont polished maple,
glided across Concourse C, cultured and refined,
dressed in subdued orange and yellow designer suits,
at Newark International Airport. Both smiled
and the older one whispered to the younger one
and the younger one spoke to me saying,
"She wonders if you are from our country."

"Your country?" I asked, taking them in,
their regalness, the broad foreheads,
the wide-set bright eyes backlit with the glory
of white palaces hit by rays of a high noon sun.

"Yes," she said. "We are from Ethiopia.
You look like the women from our country."

"Ethiopia? Oh, my! No. I am American.
So were my parents, so were their parents,"
Then I saw the sea again, but I didn't want to say,
"I came from the slave ships." I didn't want to say...
Time belched a bubble and snagged me
like the day I learned in elementary school
how my people came to America.

Cold irons grip my ankles, hot wet sand
scrapes the soles of my feet, my heart swells up,
fills my chest, shame lashes my back, I fall into darkness.

Still foulness smirks like words don't matter...

Nobody wants to be a "slave."