May 10th, 2018

MANY UNMARKED GRAVES
IN THIS AREA
WILLIAM E. CONNELLY
SURVEY OF 1895-1896

In Kansas City, we finally lost the Spring. We finally lost rebirth. The birds now arrive too late. There is an ambulance, a fire truck, a police car, a sleeping man, a city bus, a casino, and authentic Mexican food. I mistook for a woman carrying a baby a woman carrying her coat and shoes. Bare feet traipse through the cemetery grass and not one eye open for green snakes in the sun. Google says they don’t bite and I have long forgotten what my grandmother once told me about the legless. For years, the rumor in our family was that we were touched by Cherokee blood. Had my genome sequenced over Christmas and we were all made to forget many things grandma once told us about us. Remembered then that history can always be erased. History is a dandelion’s seed borne high upon a lost Spring wind. History is bone and word and point of view. My body ages and aches because of history and a lack of magic mushrooms. Walking across the curved earth our feet gather dust and pain but, after a while, we recall how to traverse over sharp objects and how to respect the dirt. In Kansas City, we leap from cold to hot and shift with the quickness from slight to shot. I dreamed I needed a history to claim a home. But what can a history be without a home to first anchor it? Grass grows where it’s allowed until it remembers its history. Nature doesn’t take sides. History does. Dandelions grow where they are needed and do you see how many dandelions there are? In the daytime, we walk over sharp, broken bones and our thick-soled shoes provide such sweet relief from constant hurt and filth but, in the end, they completely wreck our posture and we find ourselves lost between Winter and Summer, reading through our travel diaries and seeking trained hands to help us stand up straight again.