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We Gathered Them by Hand

Awen Fenwick

__________

We came up from the subway.
Color hit the eyes.

The Mall disappeared under thousands of panels.
Names snapped in the wind.

Some held photographs.
Some were weighted down
with stuffed animals.

Some were
a name,
two dates.

I was nineteen,
my first flag
still pinned
to my backpack.
Those I had just found—
cloth
farther than I could follow.

I looked.
Looked away.
Looked back.

All day we carried panels,
pulled them flat,
smoothed seams,
lifted, bent, lifted again.

Every day more.
More.

Strangers sobbed into my shoulder.
My chest shut.
Kept working.

By evening
my back burned.
My hands throbbed.
My feet swelled in my shoes.

Then we folded.

Slow hands.
Square corners.
Breath held.
Taken.
Held again.

I watched the fabric.
The names kept catching.

We lowered the folded panels
into long boxes,
one after another.
We gathered them
by hand.

__________

Awen Fenwick is a poet and multi-genre writer living in Ohio. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review and explores ritual, lineage, queerness, and survivorship.

__________

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