Public Works
This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features a poem by Cherry Pickman.
Public Works
It was an election year. The switchboards flickered with stars in their
universe of calls. Of all places, a public park. The workers had begun
to dig, to lay the electrical, to invigorate the place with energy. Light
it up. First, they found a braid, wrapped like a boa from collarbone
to chest. What happened next is unclear. From all accounts there were
shoots, green-apple green, surrounding the site’s black pit. There was a mist
that held the backhoe’s groans, the mens’ mutterings. Other accounts vary.
Of how many statues there were—and of whom. How many plaster arms
make a mass grave. Crowds gathered as sculpted skulls, palms were
harvested like heavy potatoes. There was one worker who, lifting
a statue’s head from the earth, covered her eyes. Who did he think
he could spare?
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