Wednesday, March 28, 2007

GULAG

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.