How They Buried Me in Mississippi

They buried me in the dirt,
in old soil with others like me:
souls that were lost to misdeeds or crime,
to misfortune or calamity.

They buried me without regard
for my mother, my cousins, my brothers;
those who had looked for me day and night,
with no help from police or their officers.

They buried me in secret
behind a blue curtain of lies;
they said they reached out to my folks,
but I know they didn’t try.

They buried me without ceremony,
with no words or even preamble.
It didn’t merit their time, they said
because I’d been found among the brambles.

They buried me without a tombstone
to mark the place where I now rest.
They put me in an old cheap box,
making no inquiry into my death.

They buried me in a pauper’s field
because to them I was an unknown.
It never occurred to them at all
that I had family, friends, or a home.

Now I lay here where I am buried
in this pauper’s field for the damned;
loved ones to never know our fate
and condemned to this no man’s land.