Mourning is the most radical thing we can do these days by Monika Kostera

(for YG)

Daedalus lost his head, not his
wings. Master craftsman – I found
the headless body lying
in a street
of Warsaw. It’s spring

and the city
is filled with fragrance,
the sublime
lilac smell of weddings and funerals.

Someone has to bury all those dreams.

The roles we were playing with zeal,
the work, well intentioned, the
dependable guts, the ways
we were good against
the dark background, the hope and the hopefulness
against hope. The ghosts
imprisoned beneath the victor’s tale.

I must
– we need to –
Embrace

his tight, splintered body
fallen, in the kindness of dust.