Persistence
A. Molotkov
That skill of memory that gets
the dead moving, animates
their lips, lungs, vocal chords, undoes
the damage to the heart,
liver, kidneys, clears
clogged arteries. The dead
repeat themselves so we
may never escape
remembering; they stare
as if they don't know what
happens. I don't believe
in souls, just in the dead
floating among us with their
reasons for having
been, for still
being here.
A. Molotkov is an immigrant writer. His poetry collections are The Catalog of Broken Things, Application of Shadows, Synonyms for Silence and Future Symptoms. His memoir A Broken Russia Inside Me and his novel A Slight Curve are forthcoming; he co-edits The Inflectionist Review. His collection of ten short stories, Interventions in Blood, is part of Hawaii Review Issue 91; his prose is represented by Laura Strachan at Strachan Lit. Please visit him at AMolotkov.com.