H e a r t   S o n s   &   H e a r t   D a u g h t e r s   of   A l l e n   G i n s b e r g

N a p a l m   H e a l t h   S p a :   R e p o r t   2 0 1 4 :   A r c h i v e s   E d i t i o n

 

 

NANCY MERCADO

 

 

What Archeologists Will Say

 

In our home each room

Is a different color

All the walls are made of cement

Except the doors

They’re made of cheap wood

They’re just doors that work

 

In thousands of years archeologists

Will dig up our Puerto Rican home

And say my family lived in a hut

These scientists will say

We were a practical people

We were villagers who were poor

They will say we used

Simple dishes to eat from

We had great mastery

Of utensils and cookware

 

In thousands of years

Archeologists will dig us up

And judging from the structure

Of our skulls they will estimate

We had dark pigmentation

We were small in stature

They will say my family was

A peaceful tribe

They will never know

Who we really were

 

 

[Originally published in NHS 2011, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs11/.]