A prize on the docks.


Kitty's Amelia, a cable fastened to the quayside,
A rope, rough-fibred, and arched to a mooring post,
The strain 'eaved through the yellow stone copings,
golden they sat regally over the dock's kiln-fired bricks,

Factory mills spun cotton shirts for African princes,
glass beads, cuttlasses, fine wines, spirits and guns,
Weeks of provisioning, water line rising over copper,
Commodities themselves innocent until next port,

Sun sets starboard, misery beyond the bow spirit,
Inequitable imbalance, a market sale of humanity,
White castles, white sands, white sails, black ivory,
A dark, rolling prison, dusty shafts of light, stench,

The passage, groaning, sickness, death, salt spray,
The West Indies, a paradise, yes...but sadly lost,
Fear the hold, tis a dreaded place, cargo for a cargo,
Homeward bound, privateer's clear, profits in sight.







[The Kitty's Amelia was the last slave ship to leave Liverpool on 27th July, 1807. She was also a 'prize ship' ie: captured by another. In this case by the ship Kitty. The Amelia was then renamed Kitty's Amelia as part of her new owners claim.]