burka
in shifting
dunes. see how I shimmer
speechless trapped in mesh
in claustrophobic shroud articulating
love is what you thirst for
riding sith—flogging sand and wind.Â
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wars and little more
after Celan
and little warlets bursting crimson against rubbled residence to tent the ghastly underfed like all the rest and now the tears like battered (bartered) rain involving death without remorse without eyes to see the ravage in the bone in the brain in the carcasses of pain again again the ravishing of reasons stacked like corpses in the ditches that we bordered on insane the name of virtue shot and spiraling in what we never did to quit the bodies crisp in mute incinerations never did to convict the will to war compassion smoldering the violins we played to work the weary made to end the days of us a bitter weeping.
Who made you?
God made you.
God is not.
God forgot.
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KATHLEEN HELLEN is the author of three collections and two poetry chapbooks. A third chapbook, young girl in the flower of time, is forthcoming in 2026 from Lily Press.