First of all, to those who came long before:

Dark eons ago,

Generations lost in narrow streets,

Forgotten short lives of deadening work.

The ancestors:

To those who died humiliated and scared, raped and slaughtered,

Matted bodies in the fields of memory.

Next, to Julia:

Tangled up in the traps,

Tied to a bed screaming to the walls,

Nightmares of those who came before,

Frozen in their footsteps,

Curdling the memories

Of everyone she loved.

And then, to her mother, Kathy:

Wrapped in her rage all these years,

Spitting her bitterness,

Carrying the baby Julia through the snow

All those dark years

Ago.

Now Julia returns

Carrying her own bundle of pain.

Finally, and again, to the dead man

Who lives in me.