Follow Him
by Rikki Santer
for Stephen Bishop (1821-1857),
lead explorer and guide to Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave
Antebellum paradox. The mixing
of bloods didn’t free you but
your subterranean prowess
your stealthy handholds traversed
unknown depths and keyhole orifices
like Kafka in his burrow. The miles
gave you momentary relief.
If you could, would you burst
through the milky membrane
and miles of connected veins you
sketched from memory, topography
stitched through your bones. Your
of history like the showman
you were to claim the libretto of
your life: puppeteer and puppet.
bold byline when published, but
Master reaped the royalties and
altered your place names to suit
Slave with a lantern, sweet talker
with harmony on your tongue-the bitterness of the South,
his own. Screech owl your turntable,
wrens scat copacetic and generations
still follow you. Union soldier’s tomb
and the honey dream of Liberia.
They followed you in your slouch
hat, the white elite in their long
stone repurposed for you years
later as a moon-eyed afterthought
like the soot-etched autographs
skirts, starched shirts, through a
bonanza of labyrinths—no neat
set of steps but corkscrew paths
you left on damp cave walls
marking the theater of your
inheritance, of your cage.
of sideshow thrills. They followed
you trying the dark and your blood
paths. Tapestries of sound—your call
and response in echo chambers,
your gospel sing-alongs floating
atop underground rivers, then
salvation in midnight grace notes
whispered moist in your Charlotte’s
ear. Keen as those eyeless fish
Gyroscope Review 21
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