Maureen Clark

Critical Race Theory

I.

don’t bury me in strange ground but how could they help it?
what choice did they have? after the graveyard of the Middle Passage

if they made it to land they would have to be buried on this strange shore

II.

in Tallahassee Florida shadows of caskets started to show
in the well-tended lawn on the 7th green rows of yellow rectangles appeared

a slave cemetery from a forgotten plantation

III.

New York leaders in the sixteenth century passed a law
no more than 12 slaves could attend a funeral together who knew

what they said to each other in those strange wild songs the wailing

IV.

slave burials were rarely mapped or fenced
almost none had headstones

buried without their real names or the one that was given to them
secret late night funerals were called hush-harbors

V.

archeologists found 15,000 skeletons in Lower Manhattan
nameless bones that still told the story of being worked to death

seashells were found with the bodies the sound of the ocean to carry them home

Maureen Clark’s first book This Insatiable August was released by Signature Books in 2024. She has been nominated twice for a 2024 Pushcart Prize. Her memoir Falling into Bountiful: Confessions of a Once Upon a Time Mormon won Honorable Mention in the 2024 Utah Original Writing Competition. She taught at the University of Utah for 20 years and was president of Writers @ Work 1999-2001. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Gettysburg Review, Alaska Quarterly, Thimble Literary Journal, Cool Beans Literary Magazine and Kestrel.