Virginia Dare
by Daniel Eckroad
the small industry of your
voice banging out the names
Pisgah, Swananoa, Catawba
…
old mill awash with rusted
water, choked utterance
of consumed hills, scalped
…
the bend and weave of hidden
arts, mixed scotch and creek
and Ashanti, a word for every wend
…
Ktaadn bends and Grandfather
wakes alone; wind-blow rock
an anvil showers sparks of breath
…
repeat them repeat your place-
names, waves in many-armed lakes,
no cure but in silence, repeat
…
they are lost now to an unknown
word, no vernacular relic
resurrects memory
…
sea’s over that island, wave
weed wave weed
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