and those we’ve left behind

 

We carry the survivors as best we can,

wrapped in a shawl huge enough

to hold the unsettled dreams of Chagall. 

Folk dancers huddle in the folds, old men

can be heard chanting, a mother’s shin

dangles from the spill, and blue fish sail

through a sky of crimson thread

among children trusting

in the improbable.

 

The barges of our hearts ferry

the cobbled together, one being

of many beats. We carry the survivors

as best we can, only later seeing

we are the survivors we carry

and those we’ve left behind.