this does, running the wine-dark water over
and over my fingers until they bleed
and the film leaks ink into the river.
We were silhouettes suspended
in film. I can’t stop tracing our shapes
into the clouds. (There was a version
of this with clouds.) We can’t pull this far
enough back to leave any of it
at the museum, where we took polaroids in front
of the staircase. I’m not sorry
for the bones, the birds. The robin we’d
dismantled. Or hid. Orange dissolving
into the corners, the piano, the walks
downhill. What does it mean to protect—
or preserve. I’m not sorry because we’ll never
make it into an archive but I know
this. Listen: there were bugs, ivy,
mineral shaped into memory. We ate
leaves below the sculptures and couldn’t
help but know there’s nothing we can do
about time leaving us at its fraying
edges. About the river as it darkens. Look,
everything has its brokenness. Plates
collide. Skeletons dismantle. The fractures
work their way up the lenses and every photo
etches a line between us. There were always photos, and I’m not
sorry for the ink dissolving, or for the rain,
the oxbow bend— we were surrounded
by the weight of the water. I swear
this was only ever all-consuming. A self
portrait. No. Preservation.