Somewhere past the planted pines
and under the veil
of quilted sheets.
There lies a riverbed.
I am buried there.
Along with my pots and pans
and scattered bits of bead.
With the roly-polies
and arrowheads.
Deeper than the limestone caves
and round like the wind.
Don’t tell me
we are not
our memories.
We are nothing but
and soon will but a memory be.
Like a longleaf pine
after a fire
I will nurse my roots
and wait,
before shooting up
from the red georgia clay
-georgia-
Being a word for a name
of a woman who knows nothing of this place.
Born from the ashes.
The soil has kept me clean.
For when I rise
to take back
what you took from me