I’d meet you on the edge except where we
used to stand has crumbled, collapsed like a
dune into the sea, calved like a glacier
meeting the water, separated like
sheering off the tip of a complacent
continent.  Go get the girls, bring back the
boys, enlist the elderly, enlighten
the unemployed, chum up the choir, for the
afterlife’s right here, ringing like a bell
in that space where something used to be, found
in absence and loss, passive and active
resistance. My factory became a
bedroom, my sleeping space a kitchen where
all are invited to eat, but no one
arrives.  The lawn transformed to moat, driveway
drawn up like a bridge.  Let me see the mask
under the face covering you’re wearing,
the clothes under your nakedness, the shoes
like soles to your bare feet.  You’ve nowhere to
go but the store, nothing to share except
stories of when we wove tales, went places,
the world an oyster left on the counter
to rot. We forgot the mollusk was there,
unopened, until the smell reminded
us of tasks and obligations.  We take
out the trash, police the perimeter,
pick up paper, recycle the bags, text
a friend.  Send a note through the mail to a
person who might be dead, who can’t recall
his name nor yours nor the whereabouts of
the one who wrote this card that says Get Well.

Sandra Kolankiewicz's poems have most recently been accepted at Fortnightly Review, Galway Review, The Healing Muse, New World Writing and Appalachian Review.