living hand to mouth

though the hand not

her own, the suckling mouth

of thousands freed by her

tenacity and wit called

illiterate she moved through

night like wind hiding

fugitives in swamps covering

her tracks with twigs pushing

them all to liberty’s keep

a woman who became myth

lived with heartaches her own

husband’s hands grown cold

unwilling to follow she took

up his name and stowed

away in plain sight first her

brothers then her mother and

then tens of dozens more while

he slept she crept from border to

border searching for shelter

beseeching the weary to kept

moving onward the smell of

freedom calling out to them as

alluring as a cobbler set window

side to cool she stole them away

from slavery cruel hands

settling north in much colder lands

following an inward star taking up

court with men deemed great she

kept her own counsel and sealed her

own fate never reconciled to her

sisters she took their children into

her home guaranteed their

lineage would never again live

in chains, her father called

her Minty but she answered to

Moses by name

she answered to

Moses by name