Lillian Kalish
what’s been & what hasn’t
one week before christmas
a case of men
a whole briefcase full
a brush of air grazes your neck
are you there?
turning empty
to an elevator room
you wanted to believe in the face of the other
‘a thing among things’
said a philosopher man who escaped much horror
and still saw light
your calloused hands and his too
drop to the sides like anchors
it may not be but it is
prophetic to know your proximity
to ruin. whether by hand
or breath or worse.
the briefcase of men overturned
truth
we were returned another
past. are you here?
mind control erodes memory like a crumbling bluff
sand and soot cascade down
the homes of ground squirrels
now exposed, which for humans,
human women –
if our likeness could be found
in small, sweet things –
means breaking up
of our frail roots,
temporarily tethering us to our dens
drills pummel earth and i fret over
the brutality made
here by association
as dirt uplifts dirt,
the burrowed network
of mothers, escape routes,
a harvest of intimacies, thieved in broad daylight