Archive > Vol. 21 no. 2

Alex Averbuch

“what are you now?”

what are you now?
stiffened grass young tree dirt under the nails
spineless creature of my sorrow
moving about every night
bending its soft wondrous body
in the rustling roots
of the parching August oblivion

gravestone  photograph
when you’re approached
and looked in the eye — what are you then?

when a face is lowered
kissing your petrified
dusty face

and a candle is lit
for the playful darkness of the eye

to discern — where are you in there?
when every time I imagine

unrecognized
motionless in the dark

bag of bones

gray hairs
spread evenly over the skull
a handful of bad teeth
two of them golden
fallen into the cavity
of a voiceless elderly mouth

only the broad hips indicate
that you are a woman
of an indeterminate age

and nothing else …
the remains of a shroud
hang in tatters off the clean bones

only one single marker
a hand that will not unbend at the joint
broken back in the war
(dead now, you still manage to resist)
I wake up and recognize

grandma — my queen of heaven
isn’t it you?

swaddle me in your remains
and lull me to sleep in a wound
for you are my refuge
and your god-bearing womb is snug and soft
and the earth — everything trembles for me each moment
filled with your pain, your glory