detroit

i moved back to the city.

the city where i never grew up.

the city that doesn't know me,

or my legal name, but that knows the family that gave it to me.

i never lived in the city, and only saw it twice as a child,

yet i return.

i say i return because i feel it in the vessels and in the capillaries as i walk down the street, all from the aortic valve rushing life through me, i am home.

the city lulls me.

the city wakes me.

i am stranger but not strange, perhaps, a distinction significant enough to be more than a visitor.

the gephart name is long gone — married out or dead — but the blood remains, and feels the belonging.

it has returned.

changing surnames to separate from the violent men who once made

the city their home, i offer something new, and promise it is much more than just a family name cut out and removed.

the city they left in '63 because their racism and fragility couldn't

abide the growing tide of Black solidarity, couldn't abide to share humanity,

is my home now, and i cherish it so.

i have returned.

those few years before '67, my blood abandoned

the city escalating for revolt, and moved to another town known for its racism.

a town that was home to the grand dragon of the kkk,

and eventually sheltered the cop that ignited the spark that fateful day at the algiers.

an abusive man, from a long line of abusive men, tried to reduce the loving capacity of his precious progenies by force and erasure, by relocation and sheltering.

so i return.

with earnesty and great care for people, with deep love and understanding in my heart, i come back to

the city.

the city that knows the line of lawrence gepharts that fill my family tree, but that knows the young elspet millar, too.

my great-grandmother, buried in the city, now twenty minutes from me.

i feel the pull of her history so much more than the gephart legacy.

a return:

elspet millar, elsie — born to another elsie — grew up in scotland, in

the village called crail. she left in 1923, to

the city. she married lawrence gephart sr. she bore three sons. she assimilated into this country, helping

erase her scottish-pictish ancestry.

she outlived her husband by twenty-five years.

i'm returning 

because

the city holds my family.

the city cradles my ancestors and

now

             the city embraces me.