Kimberly wright

FINDAGRAVE.COM

A blinking cursor enters a field
no feet can touch
and regurgitates names.

Hand wrapped around a mouse, no ouija board necessary, 
my laptop serves as medium, 
miles, rivers, years 

unwound without hours of twisting 
dizzying hill-country roads,
no squinting at signs, 

no asking a stranger at a corner store for directions,
huddling in the cold wind
twisting my ankle on loose gravel.

Grandfather is interred in his Tennessee mountain grave
that, itself, is also entombed in three jpegs
in gravestone photos, flecks 

of digital dust next to other relatives
gone to dust before I was born
but chronicled in the cloud, searchable,

wander I the sans-serif row on row,
a state away, the witching hour, child asleep, 
shoes kept clean. 

No garlands or lamentations, 
just the cold recitation of names and dates, 
gnarled roots of a family tree.

____

KIMBERLY L. WRIGHT’S POETRY HAS APPEARED IN PUBLICATIONS SUCH AS POYDRAS REVIEW, EUNOIA REVIEW, GHOST CITY PRESS, BLOOD LOTUS JOURNAL, UCITY REVIEW,
OCTOBER HILL MAGAZINE AND SOUTHERN REVIEW ONLINE. HER FIRST COLLECTION OF POETRY, NOT PICTURED, WAS PUBLISHED BY FINISHING LINE PRESS IN MARCH 2020.
SHE’S WORKED AS A JOURNALIST FOR 20 YEARS AND LIVES IN WOODSTOCK, GEORGIA.