Rough, bad, rough draft but a draft?

In summer of 1608, John Smith sent an expedition south to locate any survivors of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. It turned up claims of four Europeans living in a mysterious village called Ocanahonan, although subsequent efforts to track them down proved unsuccessful.


By slug hour, I bury my bad news,
my lists.

I see now
how, to history, we are already spoken for,

and neither the cards nor the stars care much
if we heed them,

austere minutes in the ledger of what is already known.

Here in my garden, snails stretch their necks
along the rockface and consume my vegetable goods
before my eyes, while the jimson weed burns white sweet
poison above our heads, my own land turned against me,
morsels in the damp mouth of this forgettable evening.

Here, I can tell you what happened to the Roanoke Colony.

Down the pine barrens and tiny villages, not much of a river,
so what if four leftover men lived for two or twenty years,
and Dare an Indian wife among them, so
what if their delicate cotton clothes
rotted in ribbons from their bodies?

Such love is unrequited.