7,000 Strong (Poem)

Storied bones beneath UMMC* 

await remembrance/exhumation. 

Shoved into a life sentence, they spent 

decades languishing in an asylum—

last stop prior to unmarked, pine boxes 

for those lost/purposely not found. 

Discarded children, spouses, and neighbors 

writhed in electroshock ice baths—

lobotomies on the itinerary. Few loved ones 

mourned once they laid their human 

burdens down—only other crips to cry 

across time and our elders’ hidden histories.

*Heavily reported on in 2017, the University of Mississippi Medical Center has thousands of bodies beneath it from the days it was part of an asylum. Funding for exhumation and a memorial was secured in 2021. Anyone who had depression, cerebral palsy, autism, or any other disability or neurodivergence could have been institutionalized.

This poem never quite worked, but I still feel it tackles something important.

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Just adding the link to my poems in Rabid Oak for those who haven't read them.