You dislike
the word
‘palimpsest’,
citing clichés overwrought,
you're right of course.

Yet, how well
the word fits you:
histories on histories,
names on names,
the layers obscured but not
erased.

To me, as well,
the word grasps at
the edges
of how it is to know you:
looking from either below or above,
tender parent or great love,

and both, and neither,
the word describes
what is not the sum of its parts but more,
or other:
the layers dissolving,
the image moving.