I keep forgetting. There
was a commotion in 1995 when
a bird flew inside a house to
eat Chia. Then, a truck killed
A boy’s pet dog. Leaves flew all around,
and a cockroach kingdom
feted underneath our road, in
The labyrinthine sewer systems.

These are my questions: who records
the super intimate crumbs of human moments?
Do they even matter in the blip of time?
Where are the books that failed to sell?
When a woman looked at the painting, it moved her.
What happens to that painting when she dies?
Will it look back at the woman staring and remember
A profound solace?

The music of 1995 latches
to the memory of a given, limited
demographic. But they had other things going on, too

at the time

Humans similar to them collected their bill payments
and sold them meat and sandals.

A fabric of time
taut, invisible

It streamed down naked with pollen. People of 1995 inhaled and sneezed it.
Where did it go?

It’s 2017 now. A stranger with fireworks looks me in the eye.
What do you think of your birth year.
The people that came before, who moved and admired
the Systems, the Comforts. As if each time they spent
Looked like a wholly different world to the future observers.
Just that, **** happens — and there’s nothing
you can do about it.

But maybe there’s one thing.
We can talk about it, yeah. But only
Say it in words, mime that whole timespan in pictureform,
Or mimic some simulacrum in moving pictures.

Once a fossil, always so, emotions.

By design.