memento oblivisci 

when it starts to rain, i like to look through lists of unidentified bodies. a feeble and voyeuristic parade of death masks, 80s yearbook photos, bug-eyed sketches of women so decomposed all that’s described is the shape of their teeth. they list the state of the bodies when they were found because that’s what’s left. a place, a condition, a blade lodged somewhere vital. face up, in the river. side of I-81. a hotel room in albuquerque. i visited once. the guests slipped through hard blue doors and no one looked me in the eye. corpses and soon-to-be corpses slept on the same espresso-stained mattress, on two-hundred-thread-count sheets. naked in a field. a stretch of red sand. wrapped in plastic and cardboard. in my town someone walked two miles from the local publix to a pond, revolver in hand. they found him in the water and the gun on the bank and  never recovered his name. my head lists and i am swept down a rust-coated storm drain, where a sharp-eyed jogger with her border collie will spot me in three months or so. i wonder if my mother would still recognize what was left. once someone’s inside you, they’re there forever. a ring shoved into the folds of her throat. fingernails ripped off. underwear around her knees. what kind of force is necessary, to remove an identity? how hard can you hit? how much can you take?