Refugees By Margaret Van Every All it took were two: the primordial man and woman were the first to be expelled. The soil, the orchard, the pile of leaves on which they dreamed, the beasts that they had named—the sum of the familiar they thought was theirs. A sword at the back corrected them. They did as countless refugees to come: no questions asked, they placed one foot before the other until they crossed a line. Pained witnesses of forced flight— whatever the flame that drives them out— we weep for the home land lost.
Deliverance By Margaret Van Every Foot and fist embossed on the belly, time came when the womb had had its fill of you, your punch and kick. The membrane that once swaddled you so sweetly, now a shrink-wrapped garment was, binding foot against face. Coiled homunculus ached to unfold like buds, leaves, and wings. But humans cannot uncoil with balletic grace like nature’s other tight new things. The solo journey to light, so smothering, crushing and hot, delivers the fetus by force and presages future travel to unknowable states of being.
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El Ojo del Lago / April 2022
