Some
of our ancestors
were not
immigrants,
did not
scrimp
and
save
to book passage on ships
carrying them away from poverty                                                                                                                  or                                                                                                                                       persecution                              

for the promise of prosperity,
had been happy
in their homelands
through which flow
the Niger, the Congo,
were as content
there
as were the Lenape, here,
in their valley,
the Cherokee, here,
in their mountains,
the Chitimacha, here,
in their swamp.

Our ancestors
– coming neither as refugees
nor adventurers
to these shores –
were:
hunted, captured wild game,
herded, marched-to-market, penned cattle,
packed, shipped creatures,
sold, bought, bred livestock,
worked, beaten beasts-of-burden,
freed, shooed-away strays,
reviled vermin, always in danger of the boot heel,
surviving,
living,
sometimes thriving,
yelling “Yes!” to the question,
“Will wonders never cease?”

Do not ask
some of us
to tell our family’s      

immigrant tale.
Our forebears sought no fortune
in this place,
did not come
here
for freedom.