In the Absence of Clocks

Remains

25 Remains In the salt rock catacombs of Slavyansk, the ghost-monks play games of durak on carved chalk tables. The walls are lined with candlelight and their small bodies. Shriveling trinkets, they say, shy bone dolls. In the belowground, no one knows of the morning cicadas, their sharpening knives of song. My escape into this Monument of Sacred Caves is blocked by a brace of monks, an aspergillum of Easter willow whips baptismal waters across my face. The monks take my hands, fold two fingers, strip my chest. A thumbnail scores into my skin. Byzantium’s cross: a head to belly slice, right to left across the heart. Deep, we let the catacombs prowl around us. With raw vodka tongues, we play cards. It is told that the sky is an unraveling tapestry tugged on by the needles of the pine. The sun, a heathen. In the belowground, all that remains is compact, quiet, considered— held by a stub of wax, a flicker. ...