forget the past

Forget the past, its heavy arms sunken at last into the waters of the underworld, crushed and oppressed. Its murders, its slaughter, its laws. Killed there, sacrificed, assassinated. All dust, every powder that is the father of history.

Knees that have arisen in birth, daughters altered variously, giving new blood its birth, newly engendered, more daring, bolder — they shout the loud shout that flesh gets into it, filled up — the throwers, the shooters, the fabled.

Was it the grueling life of virgins, to be used so thoroughly in sacrifice that the skin came to be regarded as godlike? And we call this the kind god, emblem of power and terror?

Forget the past. Better yet, only remember what heaven was like when you were in it, the first time, when I came floating near the ceiling like a god, a bird, a speckled moth with short blonde hairs at my neck. With a neck ringed with the first thrilling kisses of a love like ours, when I could hold you in my arms like this, forever.