It is not a mass grave
as they are saying on the news,
the bones of hundreds of children
as young as three.
A grave is a place of burial
marked by a stone or mound.
What they found is a pit,
a large and wretched hole,
marked only by the paces
away from the residential school.
When the priests walked it,
carrying another child’s body,
a death that started
as it does with a petal
when you tear it
from its stem
did they count the paces
fifty-six, fifty-seven,
or did they know it off by heart,
a well-worn path
a heinous secret
and as they broke ground again
shovel in hand
did their hearts never
break too.