minidoka was a concentration camp in idaho
       

I am afraid that all my ancestors
have gathered my words like birds

collect hair from the dead
for nesting, an abundance of silence,

whole spools of it ready to tether
me to the trees. I am a new father,

too young for ghost stories, too fresh
to remember what it was like to shiver

out on the prairie. I see my own breath,
sometimes when my son cries

at night. He doesn't have to describe
those things he fears in the dark

because my grandmother told me
the world will never be safe for us

when she refused to say the name
of that place we come from. Minidoka,

I say to him and my ancestors lay
fingers across my lips. Do not be ashamed

because we are alive, because the birds
will one day pluck us clean.

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Copyright © 2021 W. Todd Kaneko All rights reserved
from This Is How the Bone Sings
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission