What Crosses
By Jane Rosenberg LaForge
Teeth and rosaries:
the hard business of taking
a census, in this case
one of erasure, pound
for pound of marrow
and pith, the appropriation
of bone for bracelets,
tree bark for embracing
new belief systems.
Everything funneled into
flat equations, which should
come out even, if
the arithmetic is properly
executed. If not, we’ll just
have extra, and affect some
disappearances, Gaps
in history, with regularity
that goes into record-keeping
overseas, the circumstances
always desperate, now
with the watermarks and seals.
Wax is such weak material,
corruptible as religion.
Unlike the bottom facts
memorized or pinned
on the inside of jackets,
who was made criminal
by which accident, who
could not be ground down
into a spice or artifact,
or mortared into an atmosphere
of sacrifice and myths
hollowed out or smoothed
over as if a faux decoration
in a kitchen: where
the stories begin,
if migration ever ends.
Jane Rosenberg LaForge is the granddaughter of what are now called “illegal immigrants” who came to the US from the Ukraine and Rumania, via Canada. Her poem “Thoughts and Prayers” appeared on Writers Resist on February 22, 2018. She is also a novelist and memoirist. More information, visit jane-rosenberg-laforge.com.
Photo by Malcolm Lightbody on Unsplash.