Let The Naïve Know How We Envy Them

I.
I hadn’t intended to write 
about massacres
this early in the morning but I am 

on Anishinaabe Land, 
the art exhibit reminds me. The tallest wall 
of the museum dressed black as a widow 

and history—in bold letters—demands witness: 

October 15, 1900, the county sheriff forced 
residents from their homes 
and they were burned to the ground.

I hadn’t intended to write
about massacres but they were burned
to the ground and I am searching 

for what may speak of them 
to me. In fine print, a framed poem 
whispers on the wall: 

for what we may speak of them
to me. In fine print, a framed poem
whispers on the wall:
                                        This is not my grief
                                        but a small hole, lightless.

II.
A small hole, dilating, fire

that one Ramadan night in Tirat Haifa,
July 25, 1948, swallowed acres of wheat 
and seventy elderly, gathered

for a meeting then too slow
to escape it. Ask my grandmother who 
heard it from her grandmother. I was not there 

but there is no forgetting what was— 

barrels of gasoline over golden locks 
and what I write from a memory 
not entirely mine, alone.

III.
On Anishinaabe Land, conditioned air 
and what I cannot bear looking 
away from. 

Let us dare to shed light, then, says the wall. 

My grandmother withholding the names 
of the burned and the words of a Jewish woman 
who once wept with me ablaze in my ear— 

“When we landed there, we didn’t know what we didn’t know—” 

Let us dare to shed light, then. Let light color us 
visible. Dark.