Neanderthal

Fotografia de Ali Gandomi

Walking home from my powerless car
I pass through a dozen supper smells, each
more promising than anything I've ever cooked.
But then my neighbors long since left me behind .
They know just how to use sage and cumin.
They change their own spark plugs, prune shrubs and feed roses.
In that garage a woman is caning a chair,
tight straw stars. My chin recedes,
my knuckles scrape the street I'm crossing.

My skills come from the wrong past.
I know how, in a team of two,
to bring down a marriage heavy with years,
cut out its tongue and liver, flay the skin,
break its mastodon limbs across
and suck the bitter marrow;
you can last a while like that.
I know how to forage.
I know how to sleep in the cold.

Sarah Lindsay