Josefa Segovia was tried, convicted & hanged on July 5, 1851, in Downieville, California, for killing an Anglo miner, a man who the day before had assaulted her.
Are the knees & elbows
the first knots
the dead untie?
I swing from a rope
lashed
to a beam. Some men
along the Yuba river
toss coins
into the doubling water.
Visible skin.
Memorable hair.
Imagine: coal, plow,
rust, century.
All layers
of the same palabra.
Once
I mistook a peach pit
on a white dish
for a thumbprint.
Wolf counselor.
Reaper.
Small rock.
The knot just under
my right ear
whispers God is gracious,
God will
increase. The soul,
like semen,
escapes
the body
swiftly.
Copyright © 2012 by Eduardo Corral. From Slow Lightning (Yale University Press, 2012). Reprinted from Split This Rock’s The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database.