An Ancient Woman
written by: Lewis Leverett
there’s a woman who is impossibly old living down
your street
she’s watched disasters happen
watched inefficient institutions fall and replace themselves
like silver maples planted in toxic soil
by an amnesiac arborist
she’s known shelter and trauma
seen shurta and cohortes urbanae and policie
witnessed arrests and killings
she’s studied a thousand gaseous scrolls of dos and don’ts
and had to read the shit the paper writes to
learn the name of the war of the week
and learnt that 3.8 cubits = 6’6” = 198 cm
and that use-by != best before
and she withstood the Holocaust
she was born of stone
given smoothness
thickness
weight so great
she learnt to be a statue
but the disasters the institutions
the traumas the cohortes the cubits
and then the bleeding the hot sweats the eyes the groping fingers the closed ears
the descriptors
‘victim’ ‘wife of’ ‘woman’
pickaxe swings and chisel strikes and finger flicks
all chipping away
now she’s
jagged
light enough to
move
so lock your door young man poor thing and your windows
she has stood up straight for too long has had enough
her back aches she
comes for
you
now
you
who have never met her
- An Ancient Woman - May 21, 2026
