Had a bit to drink so I began to think

what had happened to my ancestors

what is happening what has happened 

and is likely to happen to me

the right to protect the half memory of half lives

to live and earn a living among one's own kind

to put a brake on the creeping amnesia

that separates us from who we are

who we are from who we were

and where we came from in the longer view

newly arrived faces discovered our legends

animated as though they had known them all their lives

and not told by their mothers as we had been

in places our grandparents sold them

 in which we used to play used to laugh

used to love used to dream used to remember

but they are not afflicted by the itch that resulted

nor the scratching that persisted into

the fantasy of growing up

I await analysts to tell me where I have been going wrong

pathologists to reveal my causes

and detectorists to definitively pinpoint me