Carl Boon

Unearthed

History returns to us, all
time and loss the machine’s
eventual. When the bus stopped
at Nine Wells, I watched the steel
dig and retrieve, pause and resume.
These verbs are men’s,
but depth’s another: shards
of flagstone and clay, words
a girl etched on stone
before this city was. She was
happy, fall upon her
as she watched the olives
expand, her hips expanding
inside the thought of love.
A Fatma, a Rabia, a girl
whose girlhood ceased—
and she buried that stone
and prayed the night her father
went east and never returned.
1891. 1934. We bury our love
and hope it comes back.
December mornings we stare
at the rain, pretending
we’re the first to feel the way
it pounds against our future.