turning to my neighbors, I ask if they’re awake
just as our clenched fists 
find a body in our river
I thought I could trust what I held in my hands
but this history of ours ruins everything we touch
I want you to believe my fingers scrape at nothing
when I reach into my past
because all I’ve got so far
is dirt under my fingernails

I can angle my head in such a way that the plains of
my face echo the imprint of my ancestors, who
didn’t hold arms out but inward, to pray

they were settlers in Israel, colonials in Canada
cutting irreversible fissures
they prized their knives, winking an eye
and smiling upward at a God that wasn’t there