Greenville, Misssissippi

we can call it the Zero country
if that’s what pleases the whites
of our teeth

where everything was meant to grow
and we were meant to kill it
for the sake of our own empty

where my great grandfather forgot
when he was born
and by forgot I mean
that he was never told

Nobody knows where he was born
only where he fled to and
we only know the gods they gave us
so most of our blood is guesswork

What we know are the stories that survived:
the boy who outlasted the plague
only to be named the plague himself

the man threatened with wings
who migrated to where people pointed
and said “Free”
              said “Heaven”
                    said “Not here
and meant the same thing