Hydrology
Water is always changing its shape.
Falling as rain, evaporating from puddles,
lifting from the meadow as fog,
recycling each particle of hydrogen.
There is only this finite amount:
1,400 cubic kilometers.
Like the dead, it never fully disappears,
just adapts its form.
Leaves release water into the air;
vapor melts into liquid.
Unlike the dead who are always changing,
who are infinite in number,
recycling each particle of memory,
lifting from the pond into clouds.
Our relationship evolves as we stockpile years.
As we take on water, falling,
evaporating, the lessons the dead teach
rise, recycle, the way
they continue to nag, continue
to change shape, lifting
from the meadow as fog
at the cusp of the cooling day,
each particle amassing years,
adapting as the temperature
of the air diverges from
the temperature of the earth,
lifting from wet blades into clouds.
The lessons are always changing their form.
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Museum
Inside the shadow box, a collection of small ceramic dogs line the shelves. Some are chipped. One carries a basket in its mouth. Several sit with one paw raised. They have that look, that pitiful, single-focused, pleading look in their black beady eyes. They exist only for you. In the background, a faint tinkly music plays, but you can’t quite catch the tune. You turn to the next box: a
collection of cigarette stubs, pinned to a display board like butterflies. Under each, in careful pencilled numbers, the dates. Down the hall, there are more rooms of these shadow boxes. Each display captures an earlier age. Perhaps it is your childhood. Each object shines with innocence, with a luster that you can barely name.
Kim Roberts was editor of Beltway Poetry from its founding in 2000 through its first twenty years of publication. She is the author of seven books of poems, most recently Q&A for the End of the World, a collaboration with Michael Gushue (WordTech Editions, 2025). Roberts co-curates DC Pride Poem-a-Day each June, and co-directs the Pride Poetry Residency at the Arts Club of Washington. She has been the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Humanities DC, and the DC Commission on the Arts, and has been a writer-in-residence at 20 artist colonies and nonprofits. Her second guidebook, The District’s Departed: Walking Tours of DC-Area Cemeteries, will be released by Rivanna Books in Fall 2026. www.kimrobertsmeikle.com