Moreau / Tamias Striatus by David Gross

Moreau

lost most of his family on the voyage

to Western La Hispaniola, the rest as they were

coffered upriver. One of 500 slaves bought

by a man named Renault in 1720.

Many Frenchmen along the Mississippi

feared the Africans possessed supernatural

powers. So when Renault died from an 

unknown fever, Moreau was accused of

"incantations and necromancy."

He was condemned to be burned at the stake,

but a colonel concerned with a lynch-mob snuck

him out of the fort and hung him in a nearby forest.

Only execution for witchcraft in Illinois' history.

Maybe he was a papa loas, a voodoo priest of

Bon Dieu or only a man whose proud eyes

and black, tattooed skin frightened most whites,

whose descendants toss and turn all night

still haunted by ghosts of guilt.

Tamias striatus

                      (for Linda)

We spent winter in a backwoods log cabin

beside Beaucoup Creek. When you live that way

you live by sunlight, so when the sky bruised blue

to the west we fed our stove split hickory.

One night, out of the wood-pile, there he was,

puffed up on hind legs like a cartoon

flashback out of Chip and Dale.

You tossed a bit of bread his way

and with a tiny grand jette' he chomped it

and blue-streaked off-stage.

For weeks he was a perfect houseguest;

respecting our space, eating little,

keeping quiet, retiring early.

But when snow started melting he bid us adieu.

We imagined to a cozy hole in a hollow oak,

but sensed that he was only searching

for something he'd lost, same as us.

David Gross lives near the Shawnee National Forest in the hills of southern Illinois. He is the author of five chapbooks, the most recent, Little Egypt, was published by Flutter Press in 2017. He has poetry in Big Muddy, Blue Collar Review, Common Ground Review, Lilliput Review, The Cape Rock and Snowy Egret.