Awake from Your Slumber

Awake from Your Slumber

by Gaby Bedetti

In South Africa paleontologists discover
Homo habilis in a cave; archaeologists dust
and reassemble the bones.

I vacuum forgotten items in the basement:
a sparkly-haired Barbie, her plastic horse,
an assortment of weights, an old clock.

With a sweep of the brush,
the alarm that roused the kids
for years of school starts ticking.

A friend’s poor diagnosis wakes me from sleep–
dust we are, and unto dust […]