I think there is a story in me
buried beneath the bodies
a mass grave of forgotten names
dispersing into soil as
half-formed opening lines rot
and skeletal ideas turn to dust
plots without markers
without a protagonist
bones without meat
without coffins to house them
a lore unknown to its author
a grieving unknown to the earth
the shovel does not sink into dirt
packed too tight
among the fossils
of my ancestors
of their gods
of a suffocating
will to survive
rewriting the gnarled hands
and empty stomachs
they took into the ground
when their final pieces
and parts are unearthed
will their fists unfurl
to reveal a meaning
I've been missing
a root rich
with unwritten
promise
I dig, I dig
I will my hands
to claw for deeper ends
darker starts
stained with ink and ash
from hillside denouements
I search for them
as they toiled for me
but the space between
the blank page
the lost pen strokes
scribbled recklessly
under willow trees
lost to time
their grasp and mine
rise again empty
