Rummaged through the evidence files again tonight

the moon past full and all the crows asleep inside the woods

the past dealt like tarot cards laughing at their own predictions

avoiding the present as the transparent pox that it is.

At three a.m. I understand that what we believe in is no more

than past hopes dressed in armored denial, the lies of survival.

We are each an archaeological site, an arrowhead here, a bone

fragment there, cracked and crushed to suck the marrow out

long-forgotten memories properly encased in common earth.

Imagine the chaos if death was not the only truth.