we may restart
from zero
counting all
the days
we have lived through;
we can return
to those moments
our hearts still remember—
all the whispered warnings
whose words we
didn't hear—
as if dusting
the artifacts
in a natural history museum.
We reexamine ancient wasps,
now trapped in chunks
of golden amber,
but we do not appraise
or fear their
sheathed stingers;
now we simply
lift them up,
polish them with interest,
and place them
respectfully
back in their containers.