attention tenured historians,

the public wearies of your

improbable power fantasies

and dreary morality plays.

skip the mongol invasions

and hutterite genealogies

and find room in your

textbooks for the following:

the first cigarette, the last

hotel room, dorothee’s

footprints in the snow,

her favorite pyjamas,

the lost toys of kindergarten,

the ideal that begat the real,

the things that don’t change,

and the words for them.