Archaeologists

                You and me,
A couple of archaeologists,
Comparing pasts against
                Origins,
Placing them on mantles,
Or shelves as trophies.
                Naming them,
Stripped of humanity,
Denuded of skin:  relics.

                Then I stopped.
Erasing them from history,
Forgetting some were my own,
                Still in me.
I crammed them into closets,
In crates and boxes, piles,
                Skeletons.
Bedpost notches—calcified
Knots worn—sanded smooth.

                You and me,
You kept digging and dig still,
For some future from the past,
                Fecklessly.
Excavating yet, the same site,
Leaving little for the future’s
                Bone-diggers.
You tunnel vertically, deeper,
Chipping chisels and
                Diamond tips,
Until the bones—heaped high
By your hovel—faceless, nameless
                And skinless,
In veins without blood,
Are naught but broth:
                Black soup:
                                   oil.