Dispossession

I do not claim here to be either story-teller or scribe.  On the territory of dispossession, I would that I could sing.

Assia Djebar, An Algerian Calvalcade.

The hothouse orchid hangs its sickly head,

a floating, scent-less garden.

Beneath it, upon newsprint, a ladybug lies dead,

the colorful carapace, hardened and dusty.

The rusty tool in my hand will not repair

the flower or insect’s despair,

while the headline says nothing

of the mother’s howl,
                                 her grief,

for the slain child’s bowels, 
                                         strewn across the street.

If I were God,

I’d make you feel it—

the burden of prayers from useless hands.

I’d make you smell it—

the foul stench of rancid land.

I’d make you taste it—

the copper edge of a penny or a bullet.

I am vengeful and bitter.

Litter the flower, the insect, the child’s body.

See how the ghastly pieces make a morbid puzzle

of the landscape.

Still, I cannot still the flying shards
of catastrophe. I cannot mend the broken wing,

only speak

of the plant,

        the bug,
                     the newspaper,

                                                        the child,

of dying and dead things,

how they sing

their dispossession.

©Ami Mattison 2011

Flickr photo courtesy of sally_monster