what we decide to keep

some feather
and bone
these relics
teeming with the crowds of my past
beating on me
like a shower of nails
like the dream dreamed by my eight-year-old self
strapped down to a board
stinging bees fired at my innocent body
like bullets
i hold onto them
these fossils and these dreams like
a baby's translucent finger
to almost touch her hand,
her fleshy arm, blonde eyelash,
and beating heart
a fossil i keep
because it was hers
salmon teeth and jaw she brought me from a walk up nit nat river
a snails shell
a bird wing i found
on the top of a sand dune in death valley
a blue china mug i found in his kitchen cupboard
and took because -
my memories promised me -
it was really hers
picasso's nu de dos
that hung over their nuptual bed

why save these
"companions of no weight"