The Burial

My father

Carried his grandparents’

Bones up a mountain

Dug two graves

And put them in the

Ground

Made two mounds

And said a prayer

For the ones who raised

Him

The small bags

Shockingly heavy

That weight

Unfathomable

The grandmother who

Let him have his dinner

In a tree

So he could watch cars

The granddad

Who gave way

Too much

Surrogate parents

To a pair who left him

In Nanjing

To have the “better” life

For he, the son—

My great-grandparents I

Could have known

But for those bones

I would trade a ship

Of gold and pearls

Travel to their land

And get to know

The ages inscribed in my very blood

My father, too, bones

Me, bones

Bones