They lounge under a blue awning,
enjoying their first fresh air
in four hundred years spent
buried in summer-baked clay
with remnants of their salt camp
above Saline Bayou.
People stare at their naked bones,
noting the parallel arrow tips stuck
into the middle one’s right elbow,
and especially the narrow-necked
polished black pots buried
where their heads had been.
Curious, I push forward,
drawn to photograph
what I had sworn not to publish,
a witness to the dig
helping cover it up.
With ochre-stained feet
the diggers step cleanly
between femurs and ulnas
of the three in one grave.
Someone offers iced tea
with curious speculation—
Was it voodoo or headhunters
or Caddo ancestor worship?
Another laughs, spits,
calls them “The Potheads,”
kicks at bags of dirt,
and shakes his broad belly.
And even as I photographed them,
I could hear the headless bones
asking me to pour back the dirt
from the carefully labeled bags,
to leave their decomposed guts
whole and wrapped in their crumbling ribs.
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