Truth Or

But lies were for people who didn’t believe in the future. Who saw only an endless stretch of present without consequences or change.

– Yoojin Grace Wuertz, Everything Belongs to Us

One day the ground begins its thaw.
The blind things just below the surface shift
in their sleep.
4.5 billion years and nothing has jarred the rock
from its grinding rotation.
We know this much: even if we hold it to us,
even if we drive the stakes to pin it in place,
what’s old will slough off.

We told the lies without meaning to.
If we’re generous with ourselves, we can say
we did it without knowing.

(We meant to.)
(We knew.)

The now waking things push their frost-pale bodies up
to drink the light,
to let it sear their tender mouths.
They didn’t plan to bare themselves
but what choice, really?
Emergence
or?
The hollow left in the carapace fills with wet
and heaving earth
then disappears.

Even so,
mud keeps a record
as ice never did.
Where we skated now we plant
weight, evidence of a body lingering
and its direction of travel.
It turns out you were always going
away.

The ground begins its thaw.
What choice, really?
Peel open
or

Soundcloud link: Parisalexa, “Gardens”