Margaret Bashaar
The Girl Who Lives in Caves

There are honeycombs inside her—
she built them wall by wall
and when she can hear the roar
in her head she drops
to her knees and draws them
on the ground, in mud or dust,
in the fluff of carpet.
They hold the things
she always forgets, the stories
she never repeats in full.

She used to think
in pomegranate seeds,
in words that stuck
to the back of her throat,
empties her pockets
in search of a name she has forgotten,
fragments of empty cicada shells
laid out in piles in the grass.

Where she expects to see water
there are only roads and she says,
“I look all around me
and there are days
I can’t tell any more
what’s moving
and what’s staying still.”

She looks up, sees clouds
seep across the sky like oil
and she takes off running.
she runs to catch up with them,
to stay at their edge
and not drown in the wind.

<< return to the Table of Contents for New Series #2: Winter 2008, Volume 1 Number 2