Graveled and Quarried by Bonnie Schwartz

Graveled and Quarried

I.

Sugar rained into the yard. Dogs and children, mouths agape, gulped.

II.

Ancient ruins and ziggurats, configured in a trine, surround a field covered in fresh, short grass. Someone must mow it, the speaker thinks, but whom?

III.

Bones under sand and clay, excavated near the ruins. They show signs of disease, frailty, attacks. The speaker asks: To whom do these relics belong? The speaker demands: How old were the custodians of these bones when each of them succumbed?

IV.

In the jungle the mysteries are hidden. Plants and roots, too much rain, obscure answers that lie beneath. Hidden like family histories, too shameful to reveal.

V.

His teeth: yellowed and cracked, straight lines from top to bottom.

VI.

So many bones in the feet. Tiny, frail bones. Easily crushed.

VII.

Birds fly up from up soil, white flowers of bindweed. A nuisance plant, the yard man says. My daughter picks the white flowers, hands me a bunch, insists I put them in water.

VIII.

What is there to say about the sun? It is not the sun about which I wish to speak.

IX.

Seagulls, rats of the aviary, scavenge the beach for Cheetos. Broken shards, ancient ruins, cloudbursts. Voices of screaming children.

X.

We rode our bicycles there, rickety and rusted. Wondered about the blood staining the earth beneath our feet.

XI.

Sacre coeur. Marie de France. Do you want to play?

XII.

Invite me to your swimming pool, s’il vous plait.

XIII.

Fractured, these neighbors. Graveled and quarried. Kidnapped child wandering through fields.

XIV.

It was not political, the neighbors say. It was about the money.

XV.

A mother stands quietly in front of a large picture window framing a slice of desolate street. She is looking for parked cars containing strange men, sitting alone, waiting.

Bonnie Schwartz