Ari Banias

Time Lapse

The beauty of my home
is that it moves

is how the thinking goes

70 years ago my grandfather trades a gold bracelet for an egg

A salt particle from the volcanic boulders
dissolves
reconstitutes

into terraces footpaths little heaps of goat turd

This year fascists ascend the mountains
to recruit again from the villages

a lamb will accept even
the hardest rind of bread

—do I sing this?

40 years ago adults dress me as a cowgirl with a lisp

After they call the cave holy
people throw empty water bottles in it

when the lights go out the cowgirl
and I

freed from legibility

stop trying to boil the sadness out
of dandelion greens

One coral reef digests
its closest neighbor

another coral reef