Under Construction – Janie Braverman

Elves speak

a six pass erasure poem

the poem:

The six passes:

The source material called me. Then called me again, showing me still and chimes as verbs.

Source material for this eight pass erasure (nine, if one counts the title): “What Can Run But Never Walks, Has a Mouth But Never Talks, Has a Head But Never Weeps, Has a Bed But Never Sleeps? A River. A Sonnet.” from Paper Banners, by Jane Miller.

Invasive

In June, I wrote about sea-faring iguanas in Carried Home, on the imagination of iguanas.

The source material for this post includes a close up photo of an iguana’s face: This Is What a Vindicated Iguana Looks Like.

In fairness to Dr. Daniel Mulcahy, evolutionary biologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin and author of the study referred to in the article, know that Dr. Mulcahy and his colleagues are “working to ensure that Clarion Island iguana eradication programs are stopped.”

Wish them immediate and complete success.

Death of a resident – again and again

An off cycle post

Stolen gift cards – $500

Failure to report allegations of abuse, neglect, exploitation – $500

Improper use of physical restraints – $500

Failure to conduct timely employee background – $500

Resident death due to bowel obstruction, acute respiratory failure – $500

Stolen gift cards = the life of a resident

Death of a Resident Redux

Things Happen

Janie Braverman

December 18, 2025

On May 8, 2025, I wrote about the death of a resident in an assisted living facility, The post, also about butterflies and starvation, is here.

This post is about yet another death of a resident in yet another assisted living facility. It is also about a bridge, how words matter, and an assault by fire.

Unknown number of residents

Six workers on a bridge

Jamal Khashoggi

One woman

Resident #19 remains unidentified in public documents.

The woman assaulted by fire has been identified in the press, but I’m not naming her here.

The source material regarding the workers on the bride was originally titled: “Faster Communication Could Have Saved Bridge Workers’ Lives, Safety Agency Says”

Updated, the source material became: “Investigators Zero In on Cause of Ship Outage Before Bridge Crash: A Misplaced Label”

The six men on the bridge, unnamed in either version of the source material:

José Mynor López

Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes

Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera

Maynor Yasir Suazo-Sandoval

Carlos Daniel Hernandez Estrella

Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez

Raw pine and antlers

a seven pass poem for DKK

A seven pass poem from “Out West” by Deborah Kay Kelly. Click here to see her accompanying photographs.

Raw pine and antlers, a few skins. This room, its dusty windows claimed by cottonwoods that shine more than full-grown sunflowers, leaves smooth as persimmon. Under them, sheep shed lanolin and scat on the low breeze.
We walk downstream. Leaves float under the wide-timbered bridge like water-lanterns. We smooth the river beach with our hands and sit.
Until a bulb-nosed truck stops mid-bridge, a tight noon-shadow of gray-green metal, pitted-chrome bumper. Side panels crumpled like monstrous skin. Its engine-greased pulse builds to imminent explosion.
Who drives the bald cab? Whose fist pounds the hood? It doesn’t really matter. We walk like giants. When we were children, he shoved our faces in mud, counted to 100, but we are older, and made like a suspension bridge, to flex and persist over smother, even in high winds.