A last diaspora

The Piercys with whom I never identified
who had little to say to me, rest
in a graveyard in rows, fathers,
mothers, sons, daughters all collected
like volumes of old zines in libraries
except for my father, as he’s tossed
to the November Atlantic swell.

My mother’s family lie scattered.
I have no idea where my grandmother
Hannah was put. I vaguely remember
a stone somewhere in Cleveland.
My grandfather, where is his skull
crushed by Pinkertons, his nine
rich languages long bled to loam?

All my aunts and uncles who people
my poems, whose lives became my
mythology, they’re tossed randomly
from California to Miami, die cast
on the map of states. Under my wisteria
my mother’s ashes mingle with my cats
for I brought her home on the plane

in my lap. Even my brother vanished
somewhere in Arizona. Great aunts
were burned to smoke. Great grandfather’s
Polish grave ransacked for paving stones.
Their only monument is my memory
stored in poems evanescent as the chip
on which my lines are etched.

copyright 2007 Marge Piercy
bio
Barnwood magazine
Contents 07