Here, where confusion flowered in the rains.
The whip-mad captains steered for Teneriffe.
Their cargo was a cry. Knouts in the sheds
Were biting missionaries. Wind
Blew good excuses for the stay-at-homes
While their negotiants in palm-leaf hats
Jaded the Leeds and London cobblestones.
The Arab searched with sand between his toes
For dengue villages and typhus jails:
He signed no documents for sanity
But spread a breakbone fever through the seas.
Now he is slower with the lash than those
Who beat dead legend for conformity.
The slave is everywhere, no more confined.
And profit shackles all the slavers' sons
Who stroked his fob-and-seals, or climbed his knees
To mock the outraged mummy at his eyes.