Joshua Keiter

Occasionally a memory 
Will appear out of the nowhere 

That I hadn’t thought of 
Since it happened if not before 

And I have no idea 
How it got there 

Or how I arrived from nowhere 
To here

The children playing in the snow
Might have been making 

A snowman but instead 
Kept rolling the ball of snow 

Until it resembled nothing 
So much as the world 

Collecting everything in its path 
And coursing elliptical zig zags

Through the contours of spacetime 
Relative to its own immense gravity

Completely decimating the landscape 
Of its pristine glacial interconnectedness

And then the children put 
A smaller ball of snow on top of it

It seems we will 
Keep finding 
The recent past 

Was more horrific 
Than at first 
It seemed to be 

In the moment 
Much the same 
As the distant past 

Still reverberates
In silent recognition 
Of terrible centuries 

Caught up to and 
Including the present 
Time stretches out 

Inside of us not 
For lack of what is 
Or what will be

We know not seems

Underestimate 
The storytellers power 
In a pandemic 

At your own peril 
The screen even when on mute 
Suspends disbelief 

We all live within
The room where it will happen 
Even in the dark 

Where our squares of light appear

The shock of the view 
As we meet the horizon 
Who knew 

We could see that far 
On such a clear day 
From this vantage point 

Stretching from one deep road 
To the furthest peak 
A new journey 

We had no idea 
Would be there to greet us 
The valley below 

Almost an afterthought

The running joke 
Around these parts is saying 
Remember 
Followed by the most 
Used to be quotidian thing 
With a wistful ruefulness 
As if to say we took 
These things for granted then 
Sometimes even avoided them
In no uncertain terms 
For their sheer ubiquitous ambiance 
And post millennial irony 
As in the facetious desire 
To join the party but it would mean 
Putting on pants 
Now tinged with hopeful regret 
We may never see these things 
Quite the same way again 
Even as their prevalence 
Extends beyond what we thought 
Would be the novelty 
Remember crowds 
Remember going to the theatre 
Remember standing that close together 
Remember shopping
Remember doing things 
Remember restaurants
Remember extrajudicial executions by police 
Not captured on cell phone video 
Remember random supermarket interactions 
Remember toilet paper 
Remember when one political party 
Was not normalizing insurrectionist violence 
Remember not staring blankly into the middle distance
Remember a shared set of facts 
Remember the beforetimes 
Remember when we thought there would be an after 
Remember vaguely innocuous bureaucratic dysfunction 
That did not result in thousands of unnecessary lives lost 
Remember your family 
And that’s it 
That’s the joke 
It’s not funny anymore

The bugs in the system 
Keep replicating 

Somewhere out on 
The periphery 

At the heart of 
Systemic hypocrisy 

Someone is rewriting
The rules to a game 

No one can follow 
And replacing them 

With the same rules 
Only this time 

They cannot stand 
Astride a hedge 

Without losing the game 
They did not start

And have no intention 
Of stopping

The road 
To get there 
From here 

Is under 
Construction 
Each interchange 

In various stages 
Of destruction 
Masquerading 

As works in progress 
Expect delays 
From this hour 

To the next 
While scheduled 
Maintenance 

Vehicles merge 
Prohibiting 
On ramp entrance 

Every overhang 
A bridge to nowhere 
Same as everywhere 

Will be replaced 
With approximation of 
Obsolescent detritus 

To keep alert
Just merge slightly 
To the left or right

Strange to leave the house 
After waking up from strange dreams 
Strange weather we’re having 
Actually it’s pretty normal 
It just feels strange after 
What we’ve gone through
Strange how much traffic 
One finds on this highway 
At this strange time of day 
The news is strange too 
It’s all about undoing 
The strange things that have happened 
With various degrees of success 
At such a strange early stage

Trying to define 
A space that is 
Anti spaceless
In this not future 

Requires the act 
Of imagination 
To be willingly held 
Against its will 

Tying the strings 
Connecting one 
Event to another 
To the severance 

Inherent in holding 
These hollow boxes 
To our ears thinking 
We can really hear 

What is taking place  
At the end of the line