this is a map

Samuel Bass, on account of the street-car strike, was walking the five and one-half miles from his work to his home when a gang of white men knocked him down three times, and cut gashes in his nose and cheeks with their shoes. Bass hid behind freight cars till a Jewish peddler took him in his cart to State Street. A doctor was visited, but when he learned that Bass had no money, he turned him away without treatment. (659) 

this is a map of my city

here are the places in my city where I dare not go 

here is where the electric wires gave out and here 

is where I still had to make it home, 

and here is the first mile, where I whistled 

the way my granny taught me, to keep away the haints 

and here is where a baby waved to me from a window 

and here is the second mile, where I heard the calls, 

and on this map there is no third mile 

in this, my city, where I first prayed to die, 

and then, hearing a single cardinal over the din of their threats, 

changed my mind, and prayed to live, 

and this is a map of my neighbor’s city 

where he traces a way through the mud each day, 

the squeal of old wood on iron heralding his arrival, 

a king of the streets, a conquering hero of nowhere, and 

this is a map of my body 

"this is a map” (c) 2019 Eve L. Ewing. From Eve L. Ewing, 1919 (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2019), pp. 43–44. Used by permission from the author and Haymarket Books. Book link: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1295-1919.