GEORGIAN SIDEBOARD

Cuban mahogany, dark as night,

Close grained intensity,

Hard as stone,

What strange perversity,

That your own destiny,

Reflects the history,

Of an iniquity,

Not yet well known.

Cuban mahogany,

Smooth and tight,

Innate solidity,

Deep red-brown,

What classical symmetry,

Derived from geometry,

Solves an equation

By balancing cruelty,

And demands that your history,

Shaped by your density,

Mirrors a fate that is not yours alone,

Cuban mahogany,

Pillar of strength,

Scented with beeswax,

And strangely intense,

Felled in maturity,

Sapped of vitality,

Brought down by gravity,

Used with alacrity,

In your capacity,

As a provider of weight, so immense,

You served as ballast,

To weigh down the trade ships,

Whose cargo, let out of the hold,

Had been....

Sapped of vitality,

Brought down by cruelty,

Captured impassively,

Split from their families,

Deprived of dignity,

Beaten at length.

Cuban mahogany gleaming and bright,

Straight grained integrity, forest grown,

With what vile insanity,

Born of barbarity,

Was this obscenity,

Man’s inhumanity,

Twisted intrinsically,

Into this rarity,

Pleasing our vanity,

Showing our stories,

Aren’t ours alone.