This is us in the future, taken out to lunch by human kin who we will never know.

Lunch With A Cranium

We wander underneath the shivering limbs
Of České Budějovice, hungry in the belly
Overstepping the pits of an archeological dig
 
Or is it plumbing work, unlicensed
Raising our cousins from the raw soils
in heaps, to poke up from their piles?
 
Unholy holes, everywhere we have roamed
Earth’s pregnant past, in the cities,
Depraved villages, fire-scared caves
 
And burial pits filled with taboos
Since the first seeds were strewn
By subjects of crown or headman
 
Along the church wall, in the shadows
We stoop to inspect an adult, by size
Stained ochre in the darkest way
 
I hold you in my hands, precious being
Gone from the memory of mind
Your cranium as empty as ours of you
 
No doubt you have borne the cold
So we bring you to lunch; you sit beside us
Under a warm coat at the wooden bench
 
We talk about times before the nation state
How you would have enjoyed the knedliky and beer
On a more animated day
 
A shame has come about. I carry you across
Samsonova Kašna to drop you off
With a prayer of soul and bone
 
At church, in your conversant pile
With your kinsmen—the beggars, serfs and wenches
To rest in peace
 
Thanks for joining us for lunch
It’s been so long. Let’s get out more
To convive again
 
 
     Although we did return the cranium safely to its
     exact spot in the ramshackle pile of dirt and bones,
     I regret this adolescent-minded misadventure and
     strongly believe that the ethical mores of any
     community should be respected.