stairsteps up, each labeled like specimens
each promising a new plateau
where a name sits, in company of
a date of birth, of death, of christening –
your life before me, simplified like a fraction.
the weevils have gnawed you down to dates
and a few stories.
crinkly, suffering pages of an old bible
which you used to own, lie spoiled and aged and used
and you have marked the margins
with a red pencil. your handwriting is a shaky, splintered,
precise spider, weaving up the dry, godly words.
you smell of seatravel and
teabags.
I sit here, you are in front of me, and you are a stranger – we have never met.
the pages of your old pedigree have turned yellow, like deserters
and I can't tell whether we are ascending
or descending (though in the picture of you with the solemn dress
and the knuckled brooch you are looking down, towards me).
there, your eyes hang blue and lidded:
premature honeysuckles.
and I think I can hear you
through the date-orchard of born and died and baptized.
I can feel the tough dress material, the plowhandles, the kneaded bread
and the new heel-callouses, forming wordlessly.
I can taste the homegrown, 100% American vegetable crop
and I can see the same roosting, northern moon
which lights up your faraway eyes under the cracked glass
like an arsonist.
