[perfect-poetry-prompts]

Write a poem titled “The Cave”

[borg-apologist]

“The Cave”

i remember the park at dusk
  my shoulders crisping in the sunset
        (they’ll remember and be angry red for days)  
  feet burning in my hiking boots
        (i’ll take them off and leak sand for weeks)
looking down to read the plaque about the savages my tribe were
    (Chemehuevi, Nuwu, The People)
          living in caves

and i slip back, seeing
    the movement on the mountain:
a grandmother chasing kids
    my brother & me in another time
the cooking fires
    smoke rising up, pink-sunset cotton-candy
         people living communally

savages, they said, because we lived
    in the caves
but on the drive back, the wasteland
americana seems more savage with
    its rotting lays bags and styrofoam ghosts
           blowing across the gasoline-reeking plains