Maybe we will never yank out the old root
of our wounds, and if it begins to die
that's only because one day we will die too,
our birth certificates moved to another file,
even our shadows removed from earth—
where we once stood: air, dust-flecked light.

And the rocks at the foot of my stairs,
smoothed by eons of sea, the smaller stones
on the sill, striated, speckled, heart-shaped—
each one plucked glistening from the waves,
or salt-crusted rubble line? Someone else
will gather and—I don't like to imagine—

dispose of them. But at least they can't be
destroyed, no matter what happens to us,
what happened to Mother, Father, to all
the animals we have buried, who must
be vegetable or mineral by now,
secrets the earth holds and will not release.

But don't listen to me. So many feelings
are rooted in us we did not plant
but became good soil for. What does a root
know of stem and leaf, of what blossoms
beyond its sight? Perhaps we go down
that others might rise. What do we know

more than this stranger at the next table,
glancing up from his book to see our brief
meeting of here and now, how we've appeared,
three sisters, the fact of us insisted on,
against all odds, as if our lives were a gift,
and so, shouldn't we ask, for whom?