Link to the full January-April 2025 issue here.
Debris spreads like the scattering of bones
on the seabed, coral growing around
the long history of bodies jettisoned.
This is a myth. The artist must
imagine a biblical calamity.
The truth is that, soon, sand will cover
all evidence, soon, even the ancestors
singing deep in the ocean will not
be heard. Soon, in the soft rumble
of walls of water moving,
deafness will be all that is left.
The space beneath the freeway,
all the vehicles emptied, the pillars holding
up the interlocking maze of asphalt
and cement, is the graveyard of all
desire. We will walk among
the broken planks, the empty cars,
the tattered garments, and here
we will find ourselves alone, the wind
moving with the constant hum
of air circling the void.
To hold ourselves intact, we must
close our eyes and imagine green,
and then, for sustenance, drag our
tongues across our foreheads, to taste
the salt and sweet of our hope.
— Kwame Dawes
Excerpted from Sturge Town. Copyright (c) 2023 by Kwame Dawes. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
