~ after “It is Rumored: Bloody Point,” Jessica Damen
There is more water now, not less,
from climate change and subsidence.
Ghost-glints on the surface, bright
as bayonets on the ends of muskets.
The past may be rumor,
though much of it is true.
The past roils with the tides, crashing
on rocks at the point of Kent island.
Saltgrass and seagrass still line
the estuaries where ships passed,
bearing their cargo of bodies. Glimpsed through
paper the color of tea, bodies chained
in pairs tumble backward into the depths.
Their bones land on liquid beds, notes
of a dirge that lingers. History is a haunting that winds
through fret-boards of coral and crab pots.
You have to press it onto a scroll and hold it up
to the light, to see what soaks through;
how the colors of blood mute with salt
into indigo and siena but never fade.