Casey Zella Andrews
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Exode: Celia (1855) / Cyntoia (2004)
All language excerpted from the testimony of Robert Newsom’s daughter.
These are the bones. This is the box I kept.
I was living. I saw nothing like flesh.
The fireplace my sister. My sister, my sister.
Hearth the bed, the cabin my box.
I saw her father in the evening. About twilight.
I saw him, sick, leaving all of the paths. I saw
him leaving every place, sick. I saw him, at bed
time, sick. I sewed the evening,
I learned where the bones were. I found
the knife. The handle on it is burned black but this
is the knife. This is the box I kept. I saw no
flesh in her father. A sick box of ashes. I burned it.
I was hunted. I had not taken the ashes out, but
this is the knife. The father joined the dwelling.
My sister and I the fireplace. I saw the ashes.
I was hunted but that evening I put the father
to inquest. These are the bones. I had been sick of
his ashes for a long time. I was hunted. I was the creeks.
I was along. A long evening. At bedtime,
the father: the ashes. I was living. I had been sick,
he was living, he had been burned, a strange smell.
Had been sick ever since he hunted. I, the handle, I,
flesh. These are the bones. This is the box
I kept. I, living. I, sister.
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Casey Zella Andrews (she/hers) is a queer poet and teacher who lives in West Medford, Massachusetts, with her partner and young child. She became a parent in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic. Andrews has a BA from Hampshire College, an MAT from Simmons College to become a high school English language arts teacher in Boston, and an MA in Critical and Creative Thinking from UMass Boston. Her poetry has most recently been published in Aprosexia Lit and Shift.