William Magruder, a former Mayor of a Maryland town, donated the land for 
Magruder Park in 1927.  David Driskell, a long-time town resident who died 
in 2020, was a world-renowned Black artist and scholar who launched African 
American art as a distinct field of study. 

My first playground in the 50’s,
too timid to scale the heights

of the sliding board, grasped
its rails until my palms burned.

Only whites lived in town,
then a couple adopted 

Mary from Korea. By the mid-80s, 
all shades of kids shared

the see-saw, raced to the swings,
climbed the first step of the ladder

of change, some parents murmuring disapproval.
Thirty years later, the town hair salon 

braids cornrows, picnic baskets open
to homemade pupusas, and historians 

uncover the park’s deed,
for Caucasian inhabitants only.

So many dormered bungalows framed
by the same covenant – we grasp

the truth and pull up to the second rung.
A sturdy Step 3 when the Town Council 

announces a search for a new name.
Now we teeter on Rung 4, as David Driskell’s

votes mount, a main contender
a white, retired Fire Chief, who saved 

lives for forty years, but doesn’t lead us
to rise anew from ashes. Some residents 

cling to the old name, to climb
out of the past frightens them.

Still reaching
for another step to heal.

Loader, excavator, backhoe --
creaking toy wheels 
across the couch’s cushions, 
my two-year old teaches me
the vocabulary of construction.
He drums the sofa’s arm 
to a beat in his head, abandons it
to circle himself dizzy, tips
the pink teapot
so imaginary tea gurgles
into the cup. His laughter
curls like steam. 

Polka-dotted apron
sweeping his ankles, 
brow creased, he steers the wooden
spoon to chase clouds of flour
inside the bowl, plops
sticky biscuits into the pan.
No one has lined him up yet, boys
on one side, girls on the other.  
Fragments of light twist 
through his cardboard 
kaleidoscope, spinning images 
of everything he could become.