Parch Marks

Every drought year, they show up.
Culture lies in the landscape
Differently than memory

Swims within the brain. You can’t
Surface the ghostly monsters
Of ruined recollections

By dehydrating the waves
That fill your skull’s horizons.
Recall turns dust and drifts off.

But dry out the fields and farms
Over forgotten castles,
And uneven dryness draws

A pale sketch of what remains
Barely below the surface.
Recall must be murdered first,

Hidden in clay jars and scrolls,
Skeletons of thoughts’ wet selves
Already flensed, mummified,

And set aside with the rest
Of the hoards and burnt towers
For drought’s wry resurrection.