09-15-2025
Pamela Uschuk
A HISTORY OF MORNING CLOUDS AND CONTRAILS
So you think that you can live remote
from city streets paved with bullet casings,
mass shootings in churches, refugee mothers in cages,
the beheadings of girls sprayed from cable TV.
While the intricate lace burka of contrails smothers dawn’s blush,
sky blasts dogma to smithereens over mountains
too distant to notice the woman barricaded
down the road at Fox Fire,
her automatic rifle aimed at police.
Each morning, ravens carve black questions
that go unanswered by light. Assailed
by headwinds, they sheer, intent on laughter
as they bank nearly upside down to sing.
Sun climbs hand over burning hand
through aspen leaves going to gold bullion
anyone can spend regardless
of what bank they believe in.
Go out, lie in last season’s sinking tomato bed, pull
dead plants around you and spit seeds
at the chemical ooze of contrails jets expel
bisecting the blue intelligence of sky’s water dreams,
crosshatching quadrants between clouds
gauzy as love slipping between finger cracks.
The woman is desperate, mistakes bullets
she jams in her ex-husband’s gun for
her own screams, for his incessant fists.
How else can she feel safe? She, too,
inhales toxins saturating sky.
Feel the warmth of an otter’s last dive
before ice takes the river. Police sirens
fade like contrails across the exhausted heart of this land.
What we relinquish in the name of security
manipulates what we would breathe.
BULK
Running on the treadmill, I am thinking about bulk,
the bulk of an elephant blocking sun
as she walks past, baby
grasping her tail, letting go,
the tarpaulin bulk of her ears flapping at flies, goodbyes
trumpeting from her trunk
tender enough to sense a bruise
on her baby’s ankle, trunk
that can wrap a banyan tree
uprooting it for lunch.
Consider the bulk of a manatee,
as big as a taxi, nearly weightless
in the clear blue eye of a limestone springs,
manatee, levitating toward the bulk
of my combat vet brother, lips touching his diving mask,
tenderness he missed in his youth.
I am thinking about bulk, the bulk
of a propeller as it slices
through calm waterways,
bulk of water lilies manatee eats
with flippers bigger than my head,
manatee’s utterly harmless bulk
gouged by the propeller’s whirl.
Or dark bulk, the sheer weight of bandoliers,
lines of bullets fed into a machine gun,
The weight of an Israeli Humvee wracking Gaza streets,
missiles and bombs vaporizing mothers,
children at play in streets, the weight of the Torah,
Koran, King James Bible,
a mosque door made of myrtle, its
perfumed density, bulk of marble and powdered ruby
illuminating the Taj Mahal by full moonlight.
I am thinking about bulk, my brother’s six foot, three inch
bulk, his large hands stroking the manatee’s face, both
of them weighing less in water than a bale of straw,
squinting at one another, their graceful
balancing, lithe as clouds.
I am thinking about bulk, the
small bulk of a seven year old refugee
detained and dying of dehydration
and high fever on a border patrol bus, the bulk
of the mistake, lead tears
annealing the world.
I am thinking about bulk
and the female elephant
and the weight of tusks
and the African sun branding everything.
There is the bulk of one thousand pounds of elephant
fed daily to troops slaughtered by wildlife guards
because of a lack of beef. Within
a decade this bulk will cease to be.
The weight of guilt passes from husband
to wife, father to son to son to son, a feather
of guilt that stops all flight.
I am thinking about bulk,
the bulk of flowers, say gardenias
or tuber roses or lilacs in the spring,
the weight of perfume, funereal,
lotus blossoms manatee hugs to her chest to eat.
WITH A HURRICANE, SHE CLIMBS MOUNTAINS
WHILE SHE DREAMS
When she leans against aspen trunks,
she hears ice storms roar through
the gold coinage of leaves, a rush
like wind under the ocean, rattle
of blood in veins as big as her arms.
Above ten thousand feet, bark toddler skin smooth, folded
and elephantine, fits to her ear
like a cool herbal sachet.
Clarified by the wildfire of early fall leaves, sun dogs
leap from peak to high peak, transparent
as stained glass, bioluminescent as breath
passing up through the woody heart.
Rain soaks her dreams of flight, nails all night
wet hawk primaries to their dusky roosts
while Congress debates our skewed history of torture techniques—
which raw beatings to lose, which waterboarding to keep.
All night, her rescue dog snuggles close her thigh.
Lightning spikes thunder’s huge and terrible mouth
until dawn ravens croak through cloud rags, what
is left of the hurricane from the invisible gulf.
She holds silver sunrise, wafer of searing hope
under her tongue. Ice rain slicks
the bark of aspens in their distant nurseries,
far from feverish mothers barb-wired
in detention camps in Nogales, milk
crusting their blouse fronts, away from
their children, caged, curled into question marks
on military foil blankets scarring the news.
-from REFUGEE celebrated with the author's permission and selected by PoemoftheWeek.com Founder and Editor, Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum
AUTHOR OF EIGHT BOOKS OF POEMS, PAM HAS GARNERED MANY AWARDS, INCLUDING THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD, THE DOROTHY DANIELS WRITING AWARD FROM THE AMERICAN LEAGUE OF PEN WOMEN, BEST OF THE WEB, WAR POETRY AWARD, THE STRUGA POETRY PRIZE FOR A THEME POEM , KING'S ENGLISH POETRY PRIZE AND PRIZES FROM ASCENT AND AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. SHE IS A BLACK EARTH INSTITUTE SENIOR FELLOW AND BOARD MEMBER AS WELL AS BEING EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF CUTTHROAT, A JOURNAL OF THE ARTS. IN SPRING 2024 SHE IS THE PEARL S. BUCK VISITING WRITER AT RANDOLPH COLLEGE IN LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA. WHEN SHE'S NOT WRITING, SHE'S HIKING WITH HER DOG TALULAH AND HUSBAND WILLIAM ROOT OR BIRDING ANYWHERE SHE CAN.
