Miles away from where the Southern magnolias

Dance gaily in Mississippi morning like newlyweds

Far beneath the December gusts of Harlem

That force themselves underneath overcoats

Long ways away from the flattened heat of Houston

Pulling sweatrags from the pockets of preachers

The Baltimore boys balance on the Mason Dixon

Make home and hostel out of hostile humidity

We be far too Southern to be Northern folk

We be far too Northern to have Southern throat

This city contracts and blows out Black babies

In its peculiar bermuda triangle day-by-day

We say Baltimore is in Baltimore when a map spreads

We say Home is in our Homes when the map’s read

But really we saying that we born nowhere and everywhere

That a boulder heaved onto a thumb sized map couldn't hit us

We ain't spent two days alike since the first ship hit the harbor

We ain't spent two days alike since our ancestors went to auction

They say New orleans be half-way haunted, Compton be lazy

But this city be its own sort of assortment of crazy

When summer turns corner we don’t forget who got hollowed

But the taste of old bay kneaded into a bushel be God-sent

For four months we gonna chew right through the smoke

We gonna tell Jamaal do that dance he be doing

If every season is another gasp of life for you and yours

Time starts to become sand in the wind, and location, just a word