back on all the
totems I have worshiped—
the uncanny
animals, precious
found objects,
and solid, vivid gods,
now gone translucent
black and white
and sorted flat
in stacks inside
the book of memory—
I do not lament
the present
loss of their quintessence,
but rather—feel emboldened
by the foolishness
of hope,
for their domicile there
has made it
too clear
that it may still be
possible, even under
such attack,
for a substance
or a presence which is faded
or invisible
to live on in
consciousness, disguised
as its own lack.
