Until you’ve slept on river rocks alone
Or worn a dying shroud of ants like lace
You’ve loosed your cold water skin from the bone
Clutched your self closed curled down, chanting grace
To the ancestors in your wounds who drink
The screams of nations for their strength, wipe the
Red from your mouth like a honeybee, gorged
On the ember of the salt and burn.
But a flick,
And their drums clamoring up,
Ashes to ancestry
Descendants to dust.
