The bodies left buried
beneath the parking lot
are being excavated.
Who they are, we know not.
The North Graveyard was relocated
more than one hundred years ago,
but hundred of bodies were left to rot.
The bodies of those who died
while their families were passing through,
moving onward to take the lands
of Native Americans pushed aside.
Unclaimed children or the sick
who stopped to rest, and there, they died.
The bodies of African-Americans
buried with such strangers,
in plots set aside
for those whom true burial plots
in the sanctioned section were denied.
The bodies of the poor immigrants
without any claim to sanctioned graves.
The bodies of those without family,
with no one left to claim a grave.
Forgotten and hidden from our view
until developers dug footers
to support their grand scheme,
a multi-use tower on land once deemed
the graveyard for a city
who forgot how to grieve
for those not white, nor wealthy.
But, now, we remember, as best we can,
and rebury with dignity
every child, woman and man.
annarino writes 