Dig

Like his father before him (but not like me),
The archeologist digs for a bitter history
And lets it scab
Over skin and bread and spirits,
All broken for the sake of talk.
The slightest filament sparking for a moment
When he notices that there are never
Just two people
Lying together in a bed--
Between their bodies and beneath their weight
Are all the ones that came before,
And all the ones that didn't.
This absence in the crowd isn't seen
So much as it is felt,
Passing quietly among the breathing,
Only made noticeable
When you want to fill it:
The intimate revenge of replacement.

Arguing abortion to avoid the things that matter,
With more ceremony than the common funeral
(a little grim, with thicker veils)--
I don't want rhetoric;
I want something to drink.
We can afford our separate discourses,
And let politics and ink
Shove themselves
Underneath our fingernails.
Childhoods cleaned and pressed,
Rehung on wire hangers,
Still a little damp,
Just slightly more faded than the day before,
When a mere boy imitating the powerful
With the cruelty of youth
Comes full circle,
Returning with determination,
Ordering another round,
Building a disposable country,
Choosing a dull phrase, but an apt one
To name a subculture of salmon-catchers.

Reprimands for normalcy
While the irregulars kill compromise
Through little assassinations,
Leaving twisted little starlings
At the bottom of the stair,
But no clear enemy,
No identifiable body for bullets and blame.
As much a crime
As Yeats rewriting himself as Oisin,
Wanting more than acquiescence,
Craving the only woman like a drug:
Her toxicity soothed his nightmares
But left him empty
With nothing to fight but the waves
When nothing else would fight back,
When the body is too unreliable
To feel any temperature
Anywhere except the feet:
He could always count on them
To be cold.