in the name of harmony and conciliation

in the space between the marriages

in an effort to respect the stories other people
invent and then believe

the fictional fiction

the manufactured manifestation
of a million grains of rice

scattered like these words

left out for everyone to see and judge
or ignore and think not of

but the vanity and challenges of breaking open hearts

and the fields of boulders over which we scramble
away from each other

shift

(the little poem’s been packed away to Poland
crammed in cattle cars and denied all food and drink)

we are done