Every February 23, rubble of die der das bricks
in short piles as though a dump truck dropped off
a long sentence, left the gaps between gaps, M.I.A buildings,
collapsed people, you, who I'll never know, already
organizing the mess: a vacuum is run for decades
between cellar craters, window cleaner and lemon-scented
wood polish in the breeze.

In the votive light, perennial rebar and twisted ß,
wooden crosses return in a wasteland monochrome
with a message, chalk on stone, Alle Leben,
Everyone here survived, though I have been listening
to the bones of voices in the city memorial.
A broom sweeps. A spire topples. "The Goldcity Express"

hauls a broken sentence to build a mountain range:
Monte Scherbelino, Teufelsberg, Herkulesberg, Olympiaberg*.
Those are mountains that rise. In fields of charcoal poppies.
Those are mountains in fields of charcoal sunflowers
––headlines jumbled w/ captions, overturned
temples, mosques, Times New Roman churches,
words are urns, love is wrapped in sheets and rugs,

twistofplaygroundequipment, upside-down hospital,
crushed shops, living room with a red sofa,
torched baby's room. In a yellow flare of a house dress,
a woman smokes in the window of the ruins of the world.
Bakhmut and Alleppo, Hanoi and Coventry, Hiroshima
and Warsaw. Dresden and Gaza. Rubble of Family.

Rubble of Light. Rubble of Compassion.
We who have ruined our home in the world.

*Names of Schuttberg (mountains of bombing rubble) in Pforzheim, Berlin, Cologne, and Munich.

Excerpt from full poem, "The Pforzheim Quartet," published at Consequence: https://www.consequenceforum.org/the-pforzheim-quartet/

From “The Pforzheim Quartet”