A Visit to the Excavation
You see how it is:
We piece it together.
From shards, amphorae.
From splinters, a skull.
The tipped bowl flung crazed from the kitchen,
The bone broken putrid under the straw.
We find what was cracked and left for dead.
We finger the chink the knife made.
Lost, missing, forgotten,
Trash heaped over trash:
That’s what we look for.
What was never said, we hear.
—Nathalie Anderson