The First Grave
underneath everything
they call it progress like a fragrance diluted too far orris root – cut with alcohol – cut again the same ghost underneath before america there were crowns pressing thumbs into necks before color there were classes grinding bone into bread before the ships there were temples burned for housing the wrong god before slavery somebody was already learning how to stand on another body and call it order they decided which infants were worth feeding they exposed the daughters first the sick ones the ones born wrong-shaped the law in rome required it the father at the doorway the basket in the cold they burned tens of thousands of women across three centuries for the wrong neighbor the wrong herb the wrong word at the wrong meal they called it cleansing they called it law they called it god they walked into the monasteries and rewrote the rules in a man's hand they walked into the temples and renamed the goddess after her son they walked into the forest and called the medicine witchcraft they walked into the village and called the village savage every sacred book you have read passed through a man's mouth first every holy word edited
