"ancestors"

She crumples

and the salt falls out

of her black hole eyes

but she holds their gaze

on the reflection beneath the ripples

and soon she throws a stone

and the face distorts into that

of her ancestors,

of the women before her

who tell her that they fought these battles, too,

that she has to hold on

for them

so she smiles softly and sits on a log

and she takes out a piece of paper

as she listens to the creak of hopping frogs

and the buzz of nature’s messages

and she hopes

that she, too, will persevere,

she hopes that this bloodline

will not end with her and that the

palpitations

and the tears

and the trapped with no way out

are markers of the strength

of her and those who came before her,

she wishes to right the wrongs of the past.