[My ancestors are empty words]

no pencil
on gelatine paper

no intricate live edge
of the Missouri

no breaking sod
to mine it for wheat

no magnate’s gold to
drive our bodies into the fields

no wheat sliding east down
easements that pierce the treaty lands

no ghost of Dorothy
sits up in my body

no craft cocktail:
John Brown’s Dugout               14 bucks           

no wet grass curls
above and beneath us

no tractorsfulls of
whiskey empties

no empty words
silting our throats up

no empty bowl
of cut-up peaches

no wombs lit
up with atrazine

no place but
that’s just hearsay

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“As a kid I spent eternities at the feet of folk who would often gather without saying much. I keep what talk there was close, like an old uncle might have by his chair an antique taped-up cigar box containing photos, discharge papers, a cowrie— stuff we can’t quite throw out. ‘[My ancestors are empty words]’ is a serial poem and this part began as a shoot sent out while I was working on another part, a prose poem whose first line is ‘What is Kansas?’ It might help a reader to hold that question in mind while reading it.”
​​​​​​​—Kerry Carnahan

Black Lives Matter Anthology
 

“Don’t call

don’t remind me there are soldiers

tramping on my lawn with gas
                                        and pepper spray.”

—“The Check In” by Nandi Comer