AFRO-CAMELOT

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Dontay Givens

<i>"Hello" in your host country's language:</i> Hello <i>Home Institution (your U.S. University/College):</i> Wheaton College <i>Expected graduation year:</i> 2023 <i>Destination city & country:</i> Oxford, UK <i>Program provider:</i> Council for Christian Colleges and Universities <i>Major/minor:</i> English Writing & Sociology <i>Demographics:</i> Black, First-Generation <i>Future career aspirations:</i> Creative Writer and College Professor <i>Top 3 goals for your time abroad:</i> 1. Learning to use the Oxford comma more consistenly 2. Read J. R. R. Tolkien 3. Make a friend

Afro-Camelot

There is a space in the vanishing city in which

I must escape, a space that reeks of memories past,

of a restless city still constructing its Bronze Belt.

I come to distort the flow of such a spaceโ€”

time bent like a winding river, and the lone

city stands as a forest between the river and time.

I, too, move like trash blowing in the polluted winds

of the vanishing city. Do you see me dancing?

As I sway with the flow of time, as I move like that fire

that once darkened the White City with smokeโ€”

in what timeline shall the Bronze Belt exist,

in a city that dresses and redresses itself

in the garments of fiction? What hex shall you

cast on yourself next? What runes shall cause

that transcendent ecstasy to acidify at our touch?

The gravedigger awaits your response, I too, await

the sweet nothings you are soon to whisper. Thereโ€™s a

tree in that forest, it is located at the closer part of

the bank that joins the river. A date is ruggedly craved

with our names on it.