Moonlight radiates down
children do not mourn
parents buy new shoes
rabbits copulate in grass,
leap over each other and dash.
Cracking open a woman a child births itself.
Bodies arch over steering wheel
fog condenses glass.
We find each other… a voice in my head says he is the one.
After the fall people see
they are not who they thought.
Fortify hope in a wooden barrel
send her over water to live
in her grandparents’ stable.
Wait out the peril: dust storms,
trains tracks pounding down her back,
nails piercing flesh, hand rotting still attached.
Shoulder length hair, khaki crescendo,
camel jacket wind sails, ghost bodies,
hang around invisible ankles, graze cement.
He follows me, shouts from cornersbeware, beware.
Grandson places hand in sandpaper fold,
parachutes to shoulders, peers down fields
where white herons alight, flocks migrate
nest at feet of skyscrapers, exhaust fumes, birch oasis.
Moon beams flood evening, babies born with wings
flee fire steeples, plant pine forest temples
along the shores of ancient rivers. Start over.
What was our first language?
Poets resist death of a people
fingertips bless pen, paper.
Full moon halo crowns campus new humans born two hearts beats beating.
Sound.
"Fragments in Time" published with permission of the author.
The ALL Review is pleased to present our How to Live series, poems chosen to help readers navigate these difficult and rapidly changing times.
