SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: LESLEY WHEELER

ARCHAEOLOGISTS
By Lesley Wheeler

My temple sweeps are nightly but will go largely unremembered
when the salute comes down from in front of you and covers
your heart
save and continue save and continue save

Today’s poem previously appeared in ILK journal and appears here today with permission from the poet.

Lesley Wheeler is a writer living in Kansas City. She is a co-editor of Strange Cage and graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poetry has appeared in ILK, and Sawbuck Poetry, and translation work in the Washington Square Review. Poet CA Conrad says of her, “She is not small sticks, but flares up from them, beautifully!”

Editor’s Note: In a few words Lesely Wheeler is able to traverse time, reaching from antiquity to modernity. Today’s poem prepares us to enter the world of archaeologists—those students of human activity of the past—then takes us within the walls of temples and into the realm of the heart. But the methodology the poet proposes for commemorating her experience evokes not the past, but this very moment in history when she instructs, incants, or pleads, “save and continue save and continue save.”

Want to see more by and about Lesley Wheeler?
Strange Cage
Sawbuck Poetry
KRUI’s Lit Show reading