Archaeologists like pots
all the empty vessels holding stories
all the bowls flasks amphorae
with dried and baked-in residues
fractions of past sustenances
past pleasures

Scrape and analyse
dregs from those abandoned sherds
if you are willing
if you have the tools
to excavate the emptiness

scratch meanings from remains
subject them to analysis
reconstruct the lost
what might be left of me
my nothingness
for you to remember

I’m hunting through my past
it looks hollow
but I measure
carbon and nitrogen isotopes
see patterns find stoned
dancing at the old synagogue
the coldness of night sand dunes
dawn frost and bird counts
noon poetry
amorphous organic remains
absorbed in to the clay
enduring over millennia

terrestrial animal fats
aquatic animal fats
plant oils and waxes
a good stew by a blazing fire
and cheese of a sort

fermented rice
hawthorn grapes and honey
a wild white wine for
partying by the Yellow River
that brief 9000 years ago

You were a small girl
clinging to yourself

because everything
was left empty

orphaned
one way or another

you built yourself up
from the inside out

ribs first, a cage for lungs
shattered but lasting

breathe in breathe out
the heart with its pale

fragile beat, locked inside
its bars of bone, a stomach

tied in knots, a clever mind
storing every fact and hurt

your spine rigid, holding
certainty and loss

and hidden deep a womb
to bring the love you needed

You should have known
when you gave birth to me

that I was only a child
I could not feed you

clothe you, hold you
fast against the dark night