Lineage for Mika

How deep can our rooms grow?
A woman was found in Czechoslovakia
Entombed with arrowheads and fur
And jars, but what of it?
She died over three thousand years ago.
The archeologists have examined her life
From the bones, assembled what’s left of hers,
Polished her stones, published the findings,
Renamed her Sally, and released it to the public.

Now look at her nose bridge, the sunken eyes,
Crooked teeth, feint simplicity.
Is this not your Grandmother’s wishful thinking?

You go through whatever photos you have of her
And piece Her life from the colors you can imagine
The black and white to be. The lithe green
Rice fields laboring in the wind, a woman knee deep
In brown water caught plucking or sinking crop,
Her hair red from constant sunlight,
what her voice could
Have sounded like, something sharp as a polished
Machete, as if her scolds had to submit untamed wild
To summon back your father as he wooed
A lover he’ll never speak of again with blue flowers.

This is what you imagine and pass of as
History or poetry.

Understand the dead do not visit us.
It is we who find them.
We search for them. We recognize a part of our
Many difficult selves in them. Overturn them.
Embarrass them. Display them. Speak them.
It is what it is.

So then why can’t our rooms
Dwell as deep as lineage, four stories underground,
Through bedrock?

Let us dig as deep as fireflies searching for
A way out in the sealed jars of their cusped hands
Because the human spirit
Is selfish and afraid of being between two giants.