The cavern of yesterday has closed its jaws.
You will not find entrance to it again.
Yet its memory haunts you and
Inside history awaits, undigested.
Your triumphs and misdeeds, your nobility and pettiness
Have solidified like stalagmites.

Look there: You stand on that subway platform beside a broken train,
Your first love already mourning you with farewell eyes.
And there: You hike on a hilltop gazing at a frozen ocean,
As your dreams swim south like migrating whales.
Look at Grandmother missing the uneven stair step you meant to repair,
Locked in fatal time, her eyes startled but unchanging,
Like the broken hip that never heals.

Yesterday remains fixed in the amber of eternity,
But this next moment is exploding.
You can find it by opening your eyes
And spreading all your limbs wide before the burgeoning sunrise
As another infant emerges from your womb
Sticky and smelling of blood,
As another corpse falls into a tomb,
Her tissues dropping away like burnt paper on a strong wind,
As you embrace your last lover, heartbeat to heartbeat,
While watching the wild lillies wither,
Their seeds landing on compost,
The rot of past generations
Nursing the fertility of the next.

Here, life remains fluid
And fossils have yet to form.
Here, ripened grain waits in moist caverns of soil
Yearning to be devoured by tomorrow’s open mouth.

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