Poetry at Sangam

Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.

Europe by Alice Miller

Today,     you say,     and all the stones can hear you
each building with its ankles, nape,    and bones
watches with its stone-eyes for your footsteps and holds its converts
closer to its dome       they listen to sopranos who’ve trained years
to glide a flightless note through this stone sky –

but we will not feign a smoothness,
we’ll push past, like a kid impatient, refer to others’
rhythms of breath, beyond our shifting
grain of skin and eyes – because today,

          you say, another man was buried
(push past) and the stones may hear but only we
speak back. And we are unsolved
and unsalvageable
and when we go we cannot take our ruins.

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