In the first telling
the sun streams across
the oak table, you sit as stone
able to leap-centuries,
leap-seconds as you exhale—
no one bears witness for the witness.
You begin with ache,
with bread & honey
dripping into freshly churned butter.
Memory is stacked
in honey-comb troughs.
Then the screaming,
the fleeing, the fearing
your neighbor cutting
your furniture, your down pillows,
your body. Cows in tow, you escape
into Chervonyi Yar, everyone searching
for the gold your veins carry.
In this telling, you beg me
to memorize, absorb your haunted lips,
no one’s voice must escape, each body,
each name left as sunken ships.
Each circular grave the Earth’s outer-heart.
Just this once, you tremble
and remember before breath came light—
