Detail from Cut Fig, 2020 © Leonor Vulpe Albari
POEM OF THE UNFINISHED SANDWICH Tomato slice, white baladi cheese, rye, a bite taken from one end, crumbs. An ant trudges her burden across the blue countertop. Ah, if only you’d listened! Ah, yes, if only I’d listened. My friend lived her marriage as a mourning. So without digressing into whether an unfinished sandwich is a sandwich not complete or a sandwich uneaten I’ll write a poem for this sandwich, this ant and her burden our mottled countertop. A poem, lightwoven, fanciful, a poem flightyearning— No! A poem lumpy and dull, a poem appropriate to this now, appropriate to this silence. This silence.
POEM OF ANCESTORS When at last the sun set the light refused to leave. It stayed on, wheedling the night. Every midsummer it’s the same. The soup goes cold, flies gather, the fish turns, some pudding or other quietly bubbles. They don’t eat a thing, nor do they speak. Though I know what they’re thinking, every one of them, in their rotted out heads. You’re here and I’m not. You’re here and I’m dust.
