2.1
Our melting was never documented
on the census We never did find out
how our Great Grandfather made his way
from China to America
to work the railroads then made a home
near the black water Ogeechee river
Africans Black Indians Black Chinese
Great Grand Dad claimed the last name of Raspberry
then named his beloved daughter Georgia
No one remembers Georgia’s Mama name
She’s described as a mean Geechee woman
No one left to even claim they remember
Georgia up and married a card-carrying
Cherokee by the name John Washington
John and Georgia Raspberry had four children
Harriet my Grandmama said we be Geechees
of the African rice growing tribes
and female governed nation of the Uchee.
2.2
Harriet loved and married Wallace Brothers
from Holly Hill South Carolina where
Cousin Bernard said he once saw a graveyard
Where everybody claimed the Brothers name
Headstones for what look liked miles and miles
of Brothers Birthed, raised and buried by midwives
2.3
Great Grandmama Julia is listed
as inventory in a Georgia plantation
ledger kept down at the country clerk’s office
her indigo-stained hands worked the osisi pea plant
till she and John Brothers half black half Irish
run off to Florida with their three kids
to live on the land John’s daddy paid for,
Julia quilted snatches of blue cloth
and told her young son Wallace of her mother’s
Igbo family stories from Africa
stories Wallace followed as a grown man
Harriet and Wallace’s oldest girl Wally Mae
Married an airman from Mississippi
He turned eighteen on a battleship
bound for Japan and the Korean War
He is my fatherand his name is Moses
