I know I am not alone. The book And Her Soul Out of Nothing by Olena Kalytiak Davis seems to have captivated a wide variety of 21st century poets. This poem is one of the first that I kept re-reading and re-reading. What I did not know (but should have!) is that Lascaux is a set of intricate caves in the town of Lascaux, France. It's known for these intricate caves and the cave paintings like the one I've posted above.
WELCOME TO LASCAUX
What I'd like to suggest
are chimney swifts and charm quarks
pinochets, jaruzelskis
the upanishads.
What seeped into the cave of your brain
while you weren't looking?
What did they manage to sketch on the walls, drop
on the floor: the street
art, the railroad ties, the graffiti: FUCK YOU
and the way you always want
to lay something down.
What I have decided is to choose
to remember only the good things:
the way he used a blowtorch
as a means of prayer, the way isinglass
is an adhesive, an agent
that clarifies. The way she told time
by checking a mirror, then checking
on her arms.
Olena Kalytiak Davis
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