Anthropologies

If the world were typical,

we might be typical.

I might let my earthy fingers slip into your bronzed hand,

kiss you softly like an Eden bird.

You might whisper "how are you today"

in each virginal morning,

and mean it.

I might lie beside you

in the rags I wore when I first arrived -

all I would care to own -

And never feel shame.

But we are anything but typical.

We are a lost civilization

that cannot be read

from walls of caves or cracked bits of pottery.

Our bones are sand,

our history dust;

our future, the Edge of a universe

that we will never see,

no matter how we squint.