On Tallasseehatchee Creek

In November 1813, Andrew Jackson sent 1,000 men to destroy the village of Tallasseehatchee, in eastern Alabama, killing nearly 200 of the 300 Creeks living there by burning them in their homes.

Clear till it hits the bend

where we work the village

out of clay, where post-molds graph

the longhouses' outlines in ash

we broke through days ago.

Inside the lines, the ground is smooth

with the fat of those

who burned alive, the man who pulled

himself into the fire, gunshot legs

behind, the woman Crockett said

strung arrows with her feet.

Tomorrow, we should hit the cellars

whose cooked potatoes the soldiers ate

once the ashes cooled,

maybe some cache of bones or greasy tubers,

something to confirm the tale,

but nothing strong enough to keep

the earthmovers from moving in.

In a month, the bank becomes the angle

of Azalea Dogleg, the creek

gives up its name to Hazard

and the town's elusive grammar,

the village captured by the stream

turns under fertilized greens.

Here, where the water darkens, red,

where we sift the earth for sherds,

I wash an arrowhead

into the sun's steel-white gleam,

then sieve fists of rock through my hands

till I finger something strange

a tiny ball of polished iron,

shot-metal distilled from clay.

Arrowhead Drive, Ember Lane.