18 years (artifacts) [2010]

(speakers not speaking)

(languages catalogued in milk crates)

(a copper El Dorado

languishing on blocks)

(an outside chance

packed in moth balls)

(a trunk chained shut)

                                                     (newspapers bundled in lore)

(a rug rolled and leaning

against a pile of fetish properties)

(twelve-inch portraits

labeled and alphabetized)

(electronics left unplugged)

                                                                                  (shelves collecting shelves)

(twice forgiven instruments 

lingering again)

(18 sights wrapped in trash bags

away from all looking)

(weights gaining with age)

                                       (supports deconstructed and rusting)

(several small animal skeletons

meticulously reassembled)

(aptitudes stacked six high

and eight across)

(a bruised friendship on ice)

                                                     (two corpses rotting on the same slab)

                                                            these are representative

of the sounds and visions

                                                             and little murders

of me

                                                             but they are nothing

other than THIS

to the chronicling process

of now

weekly

                                                                    they persist

                                                                 in becoming more

  like artifacts

                                                                          buried

in the compounding dust

                                                                 of an unforeseen 
                                                                                     future