August 2021
Bio Note: I have been writing all my life—articles, fiction, poetry, random notes and lists. I live with my husband and cat in Northern Virginia, where I write at an antique desk looking out at telephone wires and maple trees. A former magazine writer and editor, I am the author of six poetry chapbooks and have designed and self-published illustrated alphabet books on anatomy, food, literature, and other topics. I blog at www.butdoesitrhyme.com.
Conjuring a Neanderthal
If I saw him on a bus, I’d hardly notice him,
scientists say—just a short, stocky man
with a heavy brow.
But I conjure him in my mind in a cave
in Spain, blowing red ochre dust over
his hand, pressed on the wall,
leaving his mark for his cousins,
however distant, however many
years to come.
I’d like to think he’d know me
for kindred, though somehow
foreign, different.
I’d like to think we’d talk a bit—
hello how are you how’d you
make that handsome spear?
But really what I’d like to know
is what he talked about with family
after the hunt,
what he loved and prayed to, what
he dreamed of, what kind of song
sang in his ears.
Nacotchtanck
They lived here once, centuries ago
I picture them where my house stands
hunting deer and turkeys
The woods do swarm with them and the soil
is exceedingly fertile, wrote Henry Fleete
some four hundred years ago
They were the Nacotchtanck, historians
say, an indigenous tribe descended
perhaps from the Clovis peoples
I see them down by Powhatan springs
where watercress grows, where
arrowheads have been unearthed
I imagine them chatting in Algonquian
eating from pottery bowls, tossing
scraps to their yellow dogs
We pushed them out, of course—
disease, conflict, discrimination
the usual wicked triad
The land was theirs, not ours, but little
of them remains—a few artifacts
and names at best
Potomac, Anacostia, Rappahannock
plus a hint of memory, faint but
haunting
Michelangelo and Bugs
Medici Chapel Sculptures were Cleaned with
Bacteria During Covid—Observer, 6/1/21
Wanted: Energetic cleaning crew.
Must be prepared to work overtime.
Must be comfortable handling art.
And so they came, legions
of bacteria, hungry to scarf up
black marks and aged grime.
Do they realize they’re dining
on Michelangelo, polishing
marble statues in the Medici Chapel?
What do bugs know of beauty
anyway, the little scrubbers?
Of Night and Day, Dusk and Dawn,
those four sumptuous sculptures reclining
symmetrically on the tombs?
Perhaps I do the bugs a disservice.
Perhaps they’ll tell the kids
at night about their glorious
adventure, how they licked clean
Dusk’s beard, Night’s nipple,
and the rest, how they preserved
a precious gift for all time.
©2021 Sally Zakariya
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