Blood at Home

Change, what keeps all of it the same,
the Teacher says, no new thing
under the sun. What we make, let’s make old
instead, older than the first tool,
what smelled much like the body–
the first blacksmith must have thought–
not quite like displaced blood, but blood at home
in its place among other parts in their places,
and that must be [...]

Relative Pitch

I was carrying supplies back up the mountain
when I heard it, the laughter of children,
so strange in that starkness.
Pushed past the brush and scrub willow
and saw a ruined farmhouse and girls
in ragged clothes. They had rigged a swing
and were playing as though they were happy,
as if they did not know any better.
Having no way [...]