Mankind, this late in coming, rewinds a thread of the world
along the stalls of early produce
crates, market palettes
smell, wet, like their tree of origin.
Nearing the very depths of us
transfusion
of the millennial mildew
trunks, grasses
beneath the rising of the waters.
The silken flesh, the acrid peat merge
on this urban curbside
splattered by cars.
“Millénaires,” © Marie-Claire Bancquart. Originally published in Avec la mort, quarter d’orange entre les dents, Obsidiane, 2005. Translation © Christina N. Cook, 2014. All rights reserved.
