“The Shredder” by Judith Terzi

The Shredder

I handed him my Macy's bags of facts:
eight years of EOBs & tax returns.
He climbed the steps to hurl them in the truck
with others' ready to be crushed by blades.
And so the re-creation has begun,
the tabula rasa, like a magic slate,
a child's whose rub or peel of plastic delights:
Now you see it, now you don't. No truth
to spin, no monument. The letters, shapes
evaporate like homes dismantling in
charity vans, the furniture displaced
like lives without a country's tenderness.
No ashes to enshrine from documents,
no mercy found, no heart to resurrect.

Judith Terzi

Judith Terzi's poems appear or are forthcoming in journals and anthologies, including Caesura, Columbia Journal, Good Works Review (FutureCycle Press), Raintown Review, Unsplendid, Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, and You Are Here: A Journal of Creative Geography. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Web and Net and included in Keynotes, A Study Guide for the Artist-in-Residence Program for State Theater New Jersey. Casbah and If You Spot Your Brother Floating By are recent chapbooks from Kattywompus Press.

Photo Credit: Staff