The Anthropologist

I keep your confessions in a box with the stolen negatives of the past
I populate your memory with billboards and neon
You're a postcard from a town that has no name
Only an single image of a place that doesn't exist
You wish you were here
I opened the drawer and there was sand in my hair
I exhaled the sea breeze and hid the mirrored sunset in my picture frame
The sunlight was divided by two perfect silhouettes joined at the shoulder
The shadows belied our forms but became the boundaries of our distance
I emerged from the thicket and laid a foundation of gravel
I turned the delicate meadow into an wasteland in you honor
There is field of tall grass behind the church where we lay in July
There is a path through a forest that became deeper by our sandaled scuffing weight
There is an ocean that crashes ceaselessly reaching for our scampering feet
There is a mattress in an empty room that holds the essence of your gravity
There is a window facing south
that frames the shimmering amber lights on a hillside
I am an anthropologist now
Unearthing the remains of a civilization with a genesis sized population
Tags and horse tail brushes, files and photographs, artifacts and fossils
The tiniest Rome
The shortest empire
The last stand of love from a time before our worlds began
There is a book with torn out pages in a dusty shoe box
There is a picture of a smile that is blurred by the sun
There is nowhere I can put these things that they will not be out of place
Save for the archives or my ever diminishing memory