by Kwame Dawes
These days I study old photographs and collect those with bodies facing away, their backs their heavy coats, their shawls and hats, as they move in crowds through cities covered in snow or slick with rain, or washed in plain light—and I imagine these are the bodies of Black people, recolonizing the imagination. And this is how I find my company here far from home, how I show love, how I feel safe. Every back, it seems, is a blood neighbor.