The Rubble Is the Witness in the Sign

It’s not a person you people
Will find in us, not a riddle,

Although we’re sometimes shaped like that.
You can use us as clues to you,

And you do—any proper noun
Especially excites you. Who?

Enheduanna. Who? Ouida.
Who? A reference to a king

Not found in any of the lists.
Who? Shaddai. Who? That sort of thing.

You want to get at the person
In us, the most human-shaped thing,

The author, the author’s life, lord,
Lover, god. Only goes so far though.

People made us but the people part
Doesn’t begin to translate us.

It’s that broken syntax we’ve lost,
That wreckage you need to restore,

If you want to rekindle thoughts
In us. We don’t. We like the wreck

Of what we were, inscrutable
But clearly meaning something more,

Proof as much as there can be proof
That some meanings can’t be restored.