Taper

Forgotten

(but remembered

thin as cicada wings)

lodged injuriously in minds

somewhere beneath 

sugar nationhood 

and settlement mateship 

is flour and tea slaughter

dispossession

it rises pernicious in skin, muscles

claws into the body 

politic

a robbery

you live with

so do I

kept pushed down

buried

down

down

down

bolt shut

for the life of you

the life of me imprisoned

dragged in dirt

head open

locked cuffs 

hands chained

legs jagged

children ripped 

from screaming arms 

taper

silence

weighted between the sound and the denial