The search turned up no one alive
as searches often go
They found the victim
Joanna-Not-Afraid
sixteen years old of the North Cheyenne tribe
(or maybe the Crow)
She lived on some reservation
the kind you hear about
in little stories about curious little things
but nothing new –
the government
the Highway of Tears
(though that was a bit further west)
etc etc.
They buried Joanna-Not-Afraid
in the earth, so she could return to it
as you’re supposed to do
But she did not stay there
She wandered the ethernet ether
the electronic space of chatter
and theory and rage
In the dimension of cables
and talk, talk, talk, talk
Joanna-Not-Afraid encountered a Captain
who had committed felo-de-se
(That was still a crime when he was alive
but not now when he’s dead)
“Where are you going
with that kind of expression on your face?”
asked Joanna-Not-Afraid
“Never mind,” said the Captain
“They put me in the void with you
and you’ll hear all about it soon enough
They won’t bury me in St. Mary’s church
because it’s against the rules”
“I’ve had quite enough of voids,”
thought Joanna-Not-Afraid
“This place and its pixels
is sufficient with tears and trivia”
She took the Captain by the hand
He was shaken by such a tender thing
A shock to his decaying system
“We’re going away from here,”
said Joanna-Not-Afraid
“This fat belly of broadband
is sufficient with tears and trivia
I know somewhere we’ll rise again”
“No! This isn’t right!” protested the Captain
But he followed Joanna-Not-Afraid
He felt helpless and embarrassed
On the way to the place Joanna-Not-Afraid had in mind
she and the Captain encountered a woman
She was drenched in blood
and petting her belly, swollen with a baby inside
“What’s your name?” asked Joanna-Not-Afraid
“I’m Sharon Tate,” the woman replied
as if surprised someone had to ask,
“and this is my baby”
Joanna-Not-Afraid took her hand
even more gently than she had taken the Captain’s
“Come with us. I know somewhere we’ll rise again”
“No! Please don’t!” Mrs. Tate protested
“Murder made me famous!
It’s my lot in life and my lot in death
They told me so when I got here!”
But Mrs. Tate was compelled to accompany them and
far too exhausted to argue
On the way to the place Joanna-Not-Afraid had in mind
they found a man in a shirt and tie
belying his dazed and weathered face
his thousand yard gaze not matching his polished shoes
“What’s your name?” asked Joanna-Not-Afraid
She had to ask twice to stir the man from his stupor
“I don’t have a name,” the man said groggily
“If I do, I’ve forgotten it. Or someone swiped it.
They only call me the Somerton Man”
“Come with us,” said Joanna-Not-Afraid
“I know somewhere they’ll give you a name”
“Well, what’s your name?” asked the man
as he struggled to stand up straight
“My name is Joanna-Not-Afraid”
“Well, that’s an odd name,” said the nameless man
in something of a Lancashire accent
“Besides, having no name suits me fine
because I’m only dead. Nothing more than that.
Somerton Man is sufficient for me”
Joanna-Not-Afraid paid no heed
and the Somerton Man stumbled along behind her
On the way, she took the hands of all of them
Every form that once thought, heard, saw,
tasted, wept, laughed, and all those things
Every human shape blurred by poor resolution
that once had eyes like moonbeams
or some other such pretty thing
She took all of their hands
Irish bombers, Arab bombers,
American bombers,
a million John and Jane Does,
Jimmy Hoffa, Jeffrey Dahmer,
the Lindbergh Baby,
all of Jack the Ripper’s prey
(both canon and otherwise),
and a soldier called Juan Soldado
whose body has its own chapel in Tijuana
“No one will pray to me in a pauper’s grave,”
protested Juan Soldado
“I beg you to leave me in my chapel
Anywhere else I’ll be Juan Morales again
and if you’re telling the truth
if we rise again
there’ll be no more mystery over me!”
No one would pray to him
if he were to escape the dot on Google maps
But she said to him as she’d said to the others
“This place is sufficient with tears and trivia.
“And besides,” she said, “we’re not going to graves.
We’ve all had enough of graves”
“Where are we going?”
the scores of shadows asked
All of them were tired from walking after so long being still
from being disturbed from their troubled sleep
“We’re going to find a heart to live in,”
said Joanna-Not-Afraid
“A pure heart, one that’s genuine.
A heart that won’t treat us like ghosts”
“But we are ghosts,” slurred the Somerton Man
“It’s our destiny,” said a Jane Doe
“The world knows us as ghosts,”
said the Black Dahlia
“we’ll never be anything more. We’d might as well accept it”
Joanna-Not-Afraid replied, not scathed in the least
by the objections of these haunts and haints
“Only if we stay here can they make us ghosts
If we find a heart, a pure heart
an aching heart
will we rise again.
Haven’t you ever seen someone with an aching heart?”
“Oi! I was someone with an aching heart!”
said the Somerton Man
“Then you know full well that if your heart ached
you must have loved someone,”
said Joanna-Not-Afraid
The Somerton Man hung his head
“I suppose I did”
An Iraqi bystander once blown to pieces
wiped a tear from his eye
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