"The worst insult in my thirty years,"
the teacher said. Arms flapping,
she turned from the board

to her brood.
Open on our desks, the Virginia History
fourth grade text.

Exhibit A. an ink drawing of a slave ship
approaching land,
brown arms and heads

poking from the hold toward air.
Exaggerations of smiling teeth
set for a birthday party.

The caption read
that arriving Africans "jumped for joy"
upon seeing

the Virginia shores…
In 1967, I raised my hand to ask
if those words were really true.