BANG OUT

People dance in the street over the making of history
while I sit alone with the dark and the making of history
and trees shiver with the shaking of history.

The moon is a crescent – scimitar, scythe.
“Cut yourself free of yourself,” it commands.
“Grow a new head.  Rise above your own chaff.”

But every morning I take the same bus again
and two old women sit next to me, speaking Russian.
“The price of meat these days!” says one.
“Trees quiver with the quaking of history!” cries the other.

And in the evening, it’s a woman with her baby.
“The sun sets ever earlier,” says the infant.
“The world grows dark and cold.  Soon it will always be night.”

Empirical little creature; she hasn’t learned yet
how the future is a hydra with a thousand terrifying heads.

Copyright © 2009, Susanna Kittredge.