Poem Therapy at 1:00 P.M.

The Archaeologist
Hester Knibbe

In one who doesn’t speak the story petrifies,
gets stumbled over, causes hurt. Then,

says the man who should know about the past, then
is a word you need to learn now. Then

lived lives had has
a name a body, sacrificial hands

so god might help us. Feel with your hands and feet
back along these countless steps and hear

the incessant bloodrush, its dark red

presence. That was what the man insisted,
in so many words, pointing to the ornate

temple corridor, an altar
conjured at its vanishing point.

Then is a word we must learn now, since we live, have lived it countless times. So strange the past appears so distant on the horizon, yet it's set up shop in our bones, lurks about in our DNA, waiting for the appropriate time to jump out and shout, hahaha!

then is an adverb, an innocuous little word that means at that time. It implies a time other than the present. Then is the understory, what lies beneath the words. Left unsaid, it can turn to stone, be chiseled into a razor obsidian shard and plunged deep into the abdomen.

Yes, a story turned to stone through silence can do damage.