Relax, there is no history now
To rise up from and overcome.
But there are some photos left
On the kitchen table like desert
Plates. Some mistaken preserve
And reward of us on a bridge
With sunset, church and mustache.
Remember these pictures waiting
To come back from the dead?
The piazza from the café, Rosetta
Memorial of family lineage in
Genealogical phrasebooks rotting
In a medieval tomb. Parchment
Like skin, none of them family.
There’s the blurred thumb or half
Face and cheek too close up to be
Made out, but I can tell is you
From sleeping that close to your
Breath. Then the mistaken
Colander of being, separating
The life juice from our fleshy
Spiral shapes, the softening juices.
And there, by the photos, are your
Fingers. Sharply bitten off, one
At a time as you held your hand up
To protect your neck. Sure, I
Remember. What I don’t, that’s
What the pictures are for, just the
Beginning of a hand, reaching out.
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