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Former Hospital Building
Angel Island  CA
Photo by Neli Moody
Crossings
Angel Island August 2009

Then,                                                                                        
It was a hum
And the dead stood feet to shoulder,
sacrificial brass-buttoned pylons,
one atop the other
Waiting.

Cables and spires were intermittent pulses
Across the bay and the diseased lay in their beds
Listening to the pause between tug and release.

And in the swamps of Georgia a slave
Stopped, hand to pounding heart
His breath swelling, diminishing the brackish waters.

Clouds of bees hovered and the fields of Europe
Were scarred with young men in flight
Their lungs yellow with fire.

“America,” the immigrants said,
Their hopes in small drab bundles piled
And they ate and slept and ate and slept.
atalantacreative
Later,
New soldiers, singed pua in their hair,
Turned in their cots, one ear to the sky
Japanese planes buzzing in their dreams.

Detainment, containment,
Yet once, the native people fished
The broad bay and hunted mule-eared deer.

Did they wonder about the sound
Like something plucked, that seemed
To come from a city that had not yet been built
A ghost of something about to rise
Across the waters, humming?



Neli Moody