my grandmama and her body is free
her body is a blue earth we’ve dug holes in
but she filled me with old gods
so i can bring her back
i seek guidance from the sun
 
this earth but in my ancestor’s tongue
this earth full of ravens’ calls
 
this earth but my mama’s hurt is a spindle to her love
 
the valley full of uncle bones
         how recycled into the living
are the dead’s clothes by now?
i mean whose uncle’s shirt is this?
this earth but i have all your things
 
do you stand up in me?
or are you where my body needs your hands?
 
i want you to be the angel that terrifies me
i want you to know all the ways i’m dying
what’s rounder than the moon
the wild dog sleeping on your grave sees tonight?
you are the only human i will trust
what is it to be lonely only for the dead?
bless it be you
 
i carry this fear for the living like a drunk uncle
through a tobacco field that shushes as it sways
 
i’m a pallet on the floor for you
to lie down on    don’t worry
about remaking me in the morning
go out and be your best dead self
do all the things you wanted to do
without these bones holding the body back
 
this wound same as my grandmothers
same as her mothers and a valley of women before them
no one taught my mother so no one taught me
 
once when i was my grandmother’s house dress
i made a mercy in the flowers
my dead walked down the middle of the street
 
i woke up on my great great grandmother’s back
writing this 400 years in-
to this American experiment
 
i will agree with the pines tonight
the darkness is a slow unrolling 
even the brightest stars feel unholy
 
 
Note: “’tween my gone people & me” is a line borrowed from Nabila Lovelace