after the 1933 film White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi
you do not stop at tree limbs
creeping into cinereal, palm roots
in the path of darkness.
you drive into the midst
of Black people burying their loved one
in the middle of the road,
this path taking you past the parish
to the plantation to be married,
king, queen, to be marred not in the cards.
you drink the poison, yet can taste only sweetness.
you, the most dangerous type of zombie there is.
you say nothing, play Liszt on the piano,
you cannot hear your lover saying,
rather you be dead than in the hands of natives,
only them calling you in the middle of
the nightmare you stir from.
& you think have been cured,
what your master means when he toasts,
to the future—a dream you outlive.
you keep on keeping on,
a hard figure beneath a white sheet
waiting for a hand.
you do not know you are a zombie yet.
right now, you are in love.
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