[My ancestors are empty words]
no pencil
on gelatine paper
no intricate live edge
of the Missouri
no breaking sod
to mine it for wheat
no magnate's gold to
drive our bodies into the fields
no wheat sliding east down
easements that pierce the treaty lands
no ghost of Dorothy
sits up in my body
no craft cocktail:
John Brown's Dugout 14 bucks
no wet grass curls
above and beneath us
no tractorsfulls of
whiskey empties
no empty words
silting our throats up
no empty bowl
of cut-up peaches
no wombs lit
up with atrazine
no place but
that's just hearsay
Copyright © 2020 by Kerry Carnahan. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 18, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.
“As a kid I spent eternities at the feet of folk who would often gather without saying much. I keep what talk there was close, like an old uncle might have by his chair an antique taped-up cigar box containing photos, discharge papers, a cowrie— stuff we can’t quite throw out. ‘[My ancestors are empty words]’ is a serial poem and this part began as a shoot sent out while I was working on another part, a prose poem whose first line is ‘What is Kansas?’ It might help a reader to hold that question in mind while reading it.”
—Kerry Carnahan”
Kerry Carnahan
Kerry Carnahan is an environmentalist pursuing doctoral work in English at the University of Connecticut. She is from Kansas.