"Bodies"

A poem I wrote after I found out Microsoft moved the bodies of my people to make room for a data center.

“If the Negro is to be free, he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sign with a pen and ink of self-assertive manhood his own Emancipation Proclamation.”

— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This poem is about bodies. Not bodies of water or bodies of work, but bodies covered by water, mud, brush, or dirt.

Not unearthed by chance like when me and my little brother found bones looking for minnows by the creek, but on purpose as white men search for new ways to make money.

Black bodies under barriers, brown bodies under borders, or out in bushes, backwoods or boondocks.

Out of sight and out of mind until they interrupt or could be politicized or commodified.

Like the bodies buried in Boydton, Virginia in Mecklenburg County.

Black bodies found in what was the Moseley Family cemetery moved by Microsoft to make way for their new data center.

Big tech deleted them like an unwanted search history,

They emptied the caskets to make cash for caching our crap in the cloud.

Thank you ProPublica and Seth Freed Wessler for seeing Mike and David Moseley, for remembering Stephen and his toddler son Fred, and for exposing Alexis Jones and EnviroUtilities and Wayne Carter. Jones and Carter were the ones who found the remains of 37 Black people, packed their bones and belongings in plastic crates, and buried them in four graves where they wouldn’t bother Nadella and Gates—as they demonstrate what it looks like when Black lives don’t matter. Your writing illustrates through your time and attention what it means when Black lives actually do.