The Missing Link

Here is a new poem that has just been published in Human Journal.Thank you to Susan and Mustafa for inviting me to submit. The link below will let you see the amazing work of all the other contributors. 

The Missing Link

The head-hunters came to the wildness of Mayo,
eighteen nineties, with callipers and camera,
to prove our nigrescence, our blackness.

They lined up full face and side view:
measured to a fraction of an inch −
forehead to crown, temple to temple
the jut of the bone from ear to ear:

Seán ‘the common noun’ Daly,
The schoolmaster at Ballycroy,
The King of North Iniskea

or my great-grandmother milling grain in the quern
the purse of her full bottom lip, 
the protruding lower jaw.

If it wasn’t for the white of her skin
she’d be the living proof.

Note: Mayo is a county in the north west of Ireland

(http://humanjournal.org/index.php/issues/current-issue)