Some 300 glass coffins, casket heavy,
perched on wooden shelves, are packed
to the brim with bone, sweat, and rich soil.
They fill space in Alabama's lynching museum,
the curators acting as pallbearers. Eulogies
inscribed across their coffins be/moan:
UNKNOWN #1.
UNKNOWN #2.
UNKNOWN #3.
1931.
Omaha, Nebraska.
John Booker Davis.
Emma Fair
Carrollton, AL
September 14, 1893.
Lillie Cobb.
Julia Baker
Lake City, South Carolina
February 21, 1898.
Fathers buried beside daughters,
friends beside neighbors,
strangers beside strangers.
Black soil stacked onto yellow.
Reddish soil jammed alongside brown.
All be/wail the dark side of unification.
Arika Elizenberry is a native of Las Vegas, Nevada. She was an assistant poetry editor at Helen: A Literary Magazine. Some of her favorite writers include Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, and Lucille Clifton. Her work has appeared in journals such as Thrush, Burningword Literary Journal, and Neon Dreams as well as in six anthologies. She graduated with her B.A. in English from NSC in 2020.