by Katherine West
Archipelago
Of prisons
Empty
Museums
Now
Where the water
Level
Is falling
At your feet
At the Bering Strait
Where you can walk
Out of
Siberian
Labor camps
And live
As the dripping
Basements
Expand
Dungeons
Blooming as the ocean
Drains
Black dahlia
Black mush-rooms
Blooming
Where no sun shines
Where you don’t live
Now
You shake my hand and
Make plans
Which are disappeared
Blindfolded and
Handcuffed
In the night
Boxcarred
Unloaded and
Put to work
In the black garden
Where no sun shines
Where you don’t live
Now
Katherine West is a poet presently living in northern Colorado and teaching Creative Writing at the local community college, museum, and Naropa University, which is in nearby Boulder, Colorado.