"truly, though our element is time,
we are not suited to the long perspectives
open at each instant of our lives."
-philip larkin
such beautiful junk, cluster-hunk
in true gargantua, deep in the attic
where the invitation came from,
to spelunk into boxes: news clippings
from wars consigned only to history books,
splotch and wrinkle photos of relatives
relatively ancient,
a first pressing of huckleberry finn, pages
stained by epidemics of humidity,
and i do remember how well she read to me,
when her lap became a throne
of wrinkled flesh and exhausted bone,
and every line became a lasting memory,
young mixed-race vagabonds having an adventure
unmediated by destination
or technology.
nana is gone now, but i can still feel her breath,
in between lines, on the flesh of my neck,
as warm as the exhalation of a geyser.
