Amy Shimshon-Santo: Nothing That Matters Can Be Invented
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
evacuation (a poem + two postscripts)
in the field of a family
there was empty space
outlines, outskirts of bodies
once related, determined
to exit the scene
follow another north
a woman
a man
a grown child
bent on departure
each character vacates the scene
no honey left on their plates
the woman leaves first
her eye on another feeling
the man leaves next
the back of his head exits the courtyard
the child is the last to go
starshot from an arrow
witness the unmaking of a family
the simultaneous demise
of an idea
I could have been her, or him, or their offspring
but I was the space between them
their observer
oxygen entered and exited
their skin sculptures
nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide
when air left the room
the field became a grey wall
nothing would grow or perish
a memory vacuum, aching quiet
flight attendants wave their two fingers
left and then right, exits on either side
by the wings, but everyone knows
a thin orange life vest won’t save you
from the descent, smack
against an enormous ocean
we will fall, apart
when their story ended
everyone had someplace
to go, but me
I was
without
a want
a torso
or destination
I was only a record
of the space between them
bloated & expanding
sorrow, hearts unfastened
is the sibling of death, this is how to die
whether or not your body stops
terror clutched my imagination
the turmoil was not the man
or the woman, the child
or the courtyard, the home
or their paths away from each other
the pain was all the glass breaking
wind sweeping the edges
of their desolate invention
a space without feet or words
cold blue, wall-less in its eternity
how to unmake a world?
pretend, for a moment
the music stops
flick off all the lights
p.s. how to unravel relations?
turn yourself inside out like a sock
fling open windows and the doors
erase the chalk pathways back
point fingers at a distant sun
p.p.s. prayer over a ruins
outside the frame
pink, fallen eucalyptus leaves
soak in a puddle of water
pooled on red brick
the wind ruffles branches
in a grove of trees
on a mountain that isn’t dead
nothing that matters
can be invented
or maligned
arma virumque cano
“I sing of arms and a man.” - The Aeneid
how can I sing of arms and men
dressed in navy blue
plump white biceps
bursting from their creased short sleeves?
my mouth opens
but no song comes out
these lyrics ricochet
off the barrel of a gun
clutched between
a policeman’s trembling hands
as he peers down on a family
through a glass window
if this were a song
the lyrics would become
a balm for the bloodied arm
of a man who fed school children
slumped in the driver’s seat
of his automobile
wet red on white cotton
his fiancé narrating
his execution on a mobile phone
while her four-year-old daughter
looks on from the back seat
the child already knows
“police are bad. they killed him
and he’s not coming back.”
if this were a song
the melody would dissolve
into the back of a man
collapsed on the pavement
face down by the bumper of a car
a policeman’s knee pinned
between his shoulders
pop-pop-pop-pop
his body robbed of breath
could as well have been
an echoing rope or twisted tree
no court of law or jury
blue men are not gods
though arms have
bestowed on them
the godly power
of executioner
how can I sing
without gagging on clots of despair?
how can america sing
without weeping?
if this were a song
it would serenade
the mothers and their children
the fatherless children
and childless fathers
if this were a song
it would fill funerals, speckled
with marigolds and daisies
but who can sing
in times like these?
Amy Shimshon-Santo is from Dogtown, a place that no longer exists. She’s a polylingual writer and educator with immediate family on three continents. Amy has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in creative nonfiction (2017), Best of the Net in poetry (2018), and recognized on the national Honor Roll for Service Learning. Her poetry collection Even the Milky Way is Undocumented is forthcoming with Unsolicited Press (2020). Read her work published by Yes Poetry, Zócalo Public Square, Anti-Heroin Chic, Rag Queen Periodical, SAGE Publications, Entropy, Public, Tiferet Journal, UC Press, SUNY Press, on
