ADALBERT CZAPTIEONESZ ..................................................................................................................MICHELLE CASTLEBERRY

Adalbert Czaptieonesz

Poem by Michelle Castleberry

Age: 51 Nationality/Place of Origin: Poland Description: Catholic Cause of Death: Cut his throat because of extreme poverty

Sew me into the dirt in pieces beside the potatoes and beets. Pay the debtors with the next harvest. Do not trouble my wife. Do not trouble my sons. They are blameless. Strew me in the furrows at night after the crows go to sleep. This labor cannot be witnessed by sun or any friend. Tamp the dirt over my flesh using my last pair of boots. My people once owned the mountains. Then we ran down with the thaw, my forefathers drinking more potatoes than they grew. Now the few of us left are folded under the valley’s skin. The shadow of the mountain always over us. Feed me back to this valley. I left my wife and sons, pale as tubers in the cottage, warmed by fire from branches stolen from the orchard. Their bones wash up under their skin like saplings in a flood plain. Their names are the last words I speak before I open my throat a different way, offer a poor man’s wine to the rich man’s soil.