Recurring dreams

Abstract

Recurring dreams Alexa Luborsky (bio) for the Oneg Shabbat & their missing box What we were unable to cry and shriek to the world, we buried in the ground. —David Graber I I am born in front of a massacre. Who are you? I reachinto the mouth of history & pull. On a placardabove my birth it says Welcome.It tells me to shake history's hand. Welcomeinside this country of nostalgia whereparadise is a vacant lotthat was once a brush maker's shopthat was once a ghettothat was once a cemeterythat was once remembered as something lostas a mouth laced with poisonthat was once a metal boxthat was once a milk canmade archive, made candy wrappers, made tram tickets, made theatre poster, made ration card, madepostcard to unknown destination, made menu at ghetto cabaret, made song, made hope, made poem,made lament, made heirloom, made just oneg, made erasure, made a century, made a project, madean activity, made a route, made criteria, made discourse, made opposing view, & if I mixed water withashes to make something new of my paintbrush, why do you call it art? It is __________. II And the hounds chased the man likethe hounds chased a manwho has escaped and the man ranlike a man runningfor his freedom and his freedom [End Page 223] whispered run like the freedomof an occupied land. III They __________ you to __________.Make you __________. Made you __________. Maimed you __________.Wove you __________.Masked you __________. Militarized you __________.Took you __________. Take you __________. Tame you __________. [End Page 224] Alexa Luborsky Alexa Luborsky's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as AGNI, Black Warrior Review, and Guernica, among others. She is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Virginia and reads for Poetry Northwest and Meridian. You can find more of her work at alexaluborsky.com. Copyright © 2022-2023 Pleiades and Pleiades Press