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MY FACE IS AN ICON, MY LIFE A SCRIM

My face is an icon, my life a scrim
Alight with meaning, my words inscribed
Reductively in stone, a hymn
To dreams annually revived.
In me you found a founding father
New, like Lincoln a colossus
Late arrived: righteous Other,
Unavenging nemesis,
The token nigger of American
Heroes, aggrieved but restrained,
Engaged but non-partisan,
Radical but house-trained.
Know that I still believe in you,
In spite of what you've done to me.
Nor can a holiday a truth
Give flesh long flayed by memory.