poems by rachel kellum
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School Bus Geopolitics
A flying-white-silk-haired ten-year-old
announces to his class on the bus
that Germany has predicted WWIII
will break out this year. Nah,
a few friends reply, Nuh-uh.
Germany knows, Germany knows!
he insists. One of two adults on the bus,
I don’t know, haven’t read it.
Another boy looks to me, a question
in his eyes. I lean across the aisle,
I read a lot of trustworthy news,
I say, I haven’t seen this report.
He shifts in his seat, shifts his eyes,
repeats words that sound like something
he overheard his parents say
about our oligarch’s plans
to swipe up Greenland, rename the Gulf.
What an idiot, he says, What an idiot.
Effigy
Limestone
In the shape of a woman
Chiseled by economic necessity
Into a teacher
Where once was an easy smile
Cheerful eyes
Rain has chewed away three caves
Pitied, pitted
Pinpoints of sand
The eyes of children
Change in a blink
From liquid to fine grit
Lifted by wind gusting
Around her
Curated room
April 2024
hermitage of the furred ones
the dog and cat
live like a monk and nun
share a low bed
warmth, silence
long days, crawling light
but not love
Dear Danny,
I forgot I bought him the book
First thing today, Grey texted six photos
of Jack’s “What Can I Say”
A destiny read, he said
Cage’s chance operations
Grey’s fingers on the edge
of morning pages, Amor Fati’s long spine
pried wide, at first I thought
his fingernails were mine
Remember him?
Jack too large for the tiny screen
I grabbed my own worn copy
scanned the contents, page 66, read it
to Dorell steeping coffee in the kitchen
Jack Fest program tucked in
Seven years ago, the night
you met Grey, just 18, at Lithic you said
How are you or something and he said
Tired, life is long and you said
in your slow, crooked-smile drawl
We can only hope and he shrugged
the smallest shrug. Later that night
he hung briefly off his belt from rafters
in Wendy’s garage, pulled up
against gravity
with hard wiry arms. I wondered
why he wore his black hoody up
the next warm day, stacking a precarious cairn
on the edge of Trickster Ridge, a signpost to life:
Go any direction from here
By miracle, Jack still holds Grey’s hand
in Leadville, sits here with me, in me
watching emptiness, like Wallace,
push snow off pinyon branches
What can we say
Because No Poem will be Read at Trump’s Second Inauguration, Here is Mine
Convinced by scientific TikTok evidence, my sons
believe the earth won’t sustain them as old men
Undeterred, one surfs wild rivers and steep snow slopes
Dante’s new Virgil, smiling guide to final earthly joys
The other builds gorgeous archaeologies of sound
ephemeral festival cities for the hopeful, the lost
My daughter fights fires, serves those bent by poverty
pours love into her infant, sparkling boy
My husband builds houses for Buddhist lamas, for peace
for the comfortable rich who cannot sleep
I teach children how to nurture worms, sprouts, compost
make murals for their greenhouse, useful clay cups
Hear this, you broken, misled, profit-blinded, king-minded hoard-men
We will not stop, we will never give up
Your four-year swansong will come to its natural end