Rumination #9
By Kari Ann Ebert
all the tattered things all the broken things hidden behind a sock stuck in drywall to keep out the cold a hole burrowed to store plunder hold ill-gotten gains stash secrets things crumbling down as hours slog away decomposing things heaped one on top of another on top of another dragged there by vermin into final rest into the thing-graveyard under the thing-night where light never unfolds its rays all the moldering things treasured by rats shiny this bits of stuff shiny shavings bits of that await some final release or re-assemblage amidst damaged things with parts seized up half a child’s toy wound down one last time a nest of silky grey hair pilfered buttons paper clips bottle caps all flung onto the growing thing-mound waiting like skeletons unburied unredeemed unfound should light break through exhume this boneyard-of-things when a cat hungry for prey strikes slashes the rodent’s doorway claws sharpened like shards of stained glass things might be freed blessed open unfettered rescued from their rot
maybe or maybe not
the cat carnivorous hunter only craved dinner compulsed by the need to fill belly with meat bloodless things won’t satisfy that kind of ache fleshless spiritless unappetizing things lie doomed left to decay no Lady Lazarus here to call forth no fingers to divide plastic from stone sort eyeball from marble from pinwheel from bone no one to breathe life no one to deal death only the thing-pile backlit by desire in the cold still space behind the wall
“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19
About the author:
Kari Ann Ebert is the interview editor for The Broadkill Review. She was recently awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship by the Delaware Division of the Arts (2020). Winner of the 2020 Sandy Crimmins National Prize in Poetry, her work has appeared in journals such as Mojave River Review, Philadelphia Stories, Gigantic Sequins, and Gargoyle. She was selected to attend the BOAAT Press Writer’s Retreat (2020) and awarded a fellowship by Brooklyn Poets (2019). She lives and writes in Dover, Delaware.
