Archaeology

This morning, on the way to work, I drove past
a house in which my wife and I once lived. Long ago
It belonged to Matilda Joslyn Gage, a suffragette,
and it is now an historical site. A sign in the lawn reads
Archaeological dig 8-4 today, all are welcome
and I considered stopping to dig.

A dozen college kids were sifting the dirt, digging
with trowels, coming to understand the nature
of the place. I had the feeling that had I stopped
and said, I lived here, this place was once mine,
they would hold up artifacts and ask me to explain
the life that I have led.

The things would all be foreign to me now,
though their shapes would feel familiar and each would bear
my fingerprints. I would claim ignorance until one of them
gently troweled at the side of my head, flaking away
the accumulated dirt of the years gone by and another
brushed aside the dust and revealed me.

They would see the plans I had set aside
in favor of this reality to which I have succumbed.
They would read my dreams and nightmares in the relics.
Then, their professor would stand across from me and call them.
Each one would turn to look at her, turn away from me,
and I would fade from there and

reappear in the car, on the way to work, passing
the house and the dig, my mysteries still intact,
the dirt that buries me undisturbed. They would search again
not for me but for that woman from so long ago,
and only I would remain at this other site, gently sifting and digging
toward who I'm supposed to be.