shiva
by Mika Kligler
over cream sauce this summer she handed me a copy of the deed to her own grave for dad’s records I rode the subway home with it she is bringing herself to pieces clearing out her attic so we won’t have to every time I see her she drapes a thick gold chain over me a jewish tome she is un building herself bit by bit absence is not empty to be clearer more and more of what she sees is obscured by a darkness at the center of her field of vision retinas to bits dad tells me she asked him recently about the right way to do yourself in what to swallow how much of it to be clearer I’ve never lost someone grief is a place I’ve never been and from here I can’t make out its topology how the dunes rise and how they fall and what they’re even made of I try to resist eulogizing before she’s gone but she is making it difficult I find myself wondering how I’ll see her when she’s not around to see rim pink thin wet eyes she tears down 73rd st armed with ski-poles their vicious tips see the earth feelingly I will see her feelingly I will lay my eyes upon her here have mine have mine until I looked it up I thought the word ‘remember’ came from the latin ‘membrum:’ limb to make embodied again in an email she tells me she wants me to write her memoir when she’s gone I think how heavy to have to write a body into being again she is asking to leave but she knows better than anyone how leaving sows seeds and bodies make for fertile ground absence is not empty there’s a place I’ve never I and she can see less and less how they rise the dunes and how they fall and what is even growing there |
Mika Kligler grew up in Brooklyn, NY and now studies Literary Translation at Brown University. She is also a member of SPACE (Space in Prisons for Art and Creative Expression) and is interested in the intersection of creative art and transformative justice.