Rivers of Mitochondria

Just outside of downtown Hattiesburg,
it was late August and way too hot to birth,
but after a push, a moan & a breath, at six in the bronze
morning she emerged, descended from a long, long, long
line of mothers stretching back to unknown parts along
the Trail of Tears and across the Atlantic and one could imagine
a sort of reverse drowning, envision her being exhaled backwards
at high speed through an inverted Middle Passage
along aquamarine ocean floors
 
~                  	~                  	~                  	~
 
where at last she would arrive in the Mother Motherland
and in all her sepia glory she’d know her lost tongue,
where her people came from, her way back home,
but this was summer’s end, so all she had was Thelonious Monk
to tinkle the ivories so sweetly it made her hungry for grits,
hot cornbread, mustard & collard greens,
and what truly sustained her—
the sweet potatoes.