In response to Martha Redbone

I don't know where the bones are.
Somewhere in Mississippi,
Somewhere underneath a footprint,
Somewhere forgetting the ache.

My grandmother traveled back
Where her mother gave birth : Where her mother’s mother gave birth.

My grandmother keeps a picture of her mother in the center of the home
Of course.
I have never asked where she was buried; always wondered where the spirits sojourned;
Never expected them to stay with the bones.

When I die, I want ashes.
Spread in an ocean so that I am everywhere: So no man would dare walk on my bones.

Somewhere in Mississippi, someone's great grand is buried next to mine and we don’t know it.
it's what makes us all cousins
Bonded by a soil as thick as bloodline
Could be the same place they tried to hide Emmitt from Mamie.

There’s a chimney on the Woodard land: The last piece standing from the home that started us.
Those bricks are bones, too; At least we know where those are.

My mother lost a child in Tennessee’s body. Gave her third born to swallowing soil with no money. Meaning no tombstone. Meaning every birthday I search party a skeleton. Meaning his bones are forgotten.
No record.
Because there is rarely any record of black bones.

Most of the time we don’t know where they are.
Most of the time we can’t even afford the bones: So we burn because fire is cheaper than earth.

Ain’t that the black American story
If Black and America can even exist in the same place

I don’t know where the bones are
Probably somewhere next to
Sandra
Or Tamir
Or Breonna