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Ancestor
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The faded family photo traps unsmiling Irishmen in an amber drop of time. |
A century has passed. They are all gone, and their children, and soon their children’s spawn. |
Among the captured, the eyes of a stern woman meets my curious gaze. |
Face of a native skin of a slave enslaver’s build. |
You stand before a whitewashed home slow changing Appalachia. I sit with fellow spawn in an assisted living room while your feeble heir gasps in her transition. |
The family album changes hands, pages turn, passing generations. |
My sister and cousin introduce your image a name: Lucy Dalton Cox a word: melungeon |
Lucy, from this side of the sepia, we salute you. Thanks for being there and here in an image and our genes. |
Time lurches irregular as troubled breaths |
All deaths are local. |
Copyright 2010 Fred Laughter
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