Banderole


by Pavel Chichikov

We've grilled lamb steaks on the back porch

While the turkey cock and gander strutted

Past the sheep fold and the lambing pen

It was still possible to understand your words

Your movements like a pendulum

Swung back and forth, but not too far

For that which makes you move could not

Unless the current, supercharged

Moved your arms and legs in semi-circles

That which makes you move could lock you into place

Freeze you fast

As if the flesh and blood were ice

As if the body were a wooden hull

Stuck fast inside the freezing plate

Of an early arctic autumn

He does this to us, over and again

Takes the wonderful and plastic flesh

And shatters it like frost-bound brick

Why does He do this to us?

What is the point, the plan, the metaphor

The fact of so much mutilation?

Listen now, I know that He exists

And where and what He is cannot be said

Except for joy and many colors

I think there is a banderole, a staff

That's fastened to a socket love which may be drawn

The flag and script of our beginning

And you will ripple move and wave, He said

But now you are the cross I died upon

Wood, stricken, full of blood

Visit Pavel's website at Grey Owl Press.

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