No dead rich white
men’s houses, proclaims
the sixteen-year-old.
No museums, no museums,
no museums, chants
her younger sister.

I scrap the itinerary,
pass out guidebooks
and together we plan
the drive from Baltimore
to North Carolina,
bracketed by aunts.

In-between? History
I thought, but now
cross-off Mount Vernon,
Williamsburg – with
much eye-rolling they
grant me Monticello.

On everyone’s list
Assateague Island,
which promises miles
of beaches and glimpses
in buggy salt-marshes
of stocky wild ponies.