In Boston, territory is marked by color, on the map and off. As a Black or Brown girl, you will spend your first months learning to read its deceptively cheerful hues the way you learn to read an all-white classroom or low-lit alleyway.

A mother’s body is never her own. Hers is a body to be entered / to be opened / to be touched and sucked and pinched and pulled / to be squeezed and examined / to be evaluated / to be expanded and depleted / to be exited / to be always in service of someone else.