An archive houses artifacts, any man-made object among his documents. The right amount of salt makes food taste more like itself. The marriage crenellated. By its 16th year, the gifts of wax or silverware. There are two kinds of ends, also gifts: traditional and contemporary. When asked if he believes in god, the hungry man answers, yes, the only thing I think of is bread. This is a darling recollection: along the dark, romantic coast littered with moonstone, also, the beach’s name. The stone’s properties: emotional balance and intuition, fostering of empathy, bringing harmony to relationships. Inside the hotel, the baby’s unweaning, perfume-maker breath atomizes us. Later, on the patio in adirondacks he and I are the precipice of luck, love, the Pacific—and my dear god—the whooshing wheel of the tide. One artifact recalls the wreck, the other artifact is the wreck.

 

       Virginia porch light—

       a luna moth coruscates.

       Start over, she says.