Visiting My Great Auntie; Chester, GA 

In a car for fifteen hours from Ohio,

I forget my stiffening knees

when the ground begins

spilling red at the road edges.

First time more south than Tennessee

as I pull up to her low roofed house,

set in front of woods whose denseness

is increased by a slight mist.

Our stolen elders died here,

their stomachs ashen fists;

our meal today is grilled pig ribs,

biscuits, baked squash

and peaches soft-edged as dusk sun.

Sitting with Auntie on wooden

porch chairs, I stare at her arm,

brown skin so many summers thicker

than the shallow yellow of mine.

High grass in the distance

jostles with a breeze

and the day creeps away

as crickets, the black shine

of their song, call close

a cobalt-faced night. 

 Marcus Jackson grew up in Toledo, Ohio.  He is currently finishing his poetry MFA at New York University.