Your tombstone stands among the rest
neglected and alone.
The name and dates are chiseled out
on polished, marbled stone.

The dash between I never knew.
Why is it that I mourn?
You did not know that I'd exist.
You died before I was born.

Yet within me are cells of you
in flesh, in blood, in bone.
My heart contracts and beats a pulse
that's not entirely my own.

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
some hundred years ago
spreads out among the ones you left
who would have loved you so.

I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
that someday I would find this spot,
and come to visit you.