These Ruins Are not Relic, but Rune

by LAILAH SHIMA

for my son

Between two pines, a clearing
of weeds. My path unwinds

the past, has no place to flee.
In this Iron Age

fortress, am I substance
or shimmer? No one

sees me cross over
a granite pit. On the altar
you’re ash. I trace

tops of rocks, webs of rooms
where someone left them.

Where hours and eons stack
small as vertebrae

I listen for the hum
nearer than a whisper

of thistles, feel it tremor
the current in my center.

This time, I align bones, mine,
on a wall of stones. This time

I do not leave
your ruined body alone.
This time my marrow—

taste of sea and smell of rust.
Face down

I drape my arms toward the ground
drag two fingers up each side

the way a potter coaxes clay
on a wheel

and remember kairos—instant
of rupture—that chink in my spine.