Perhaps existing as lone and broken binary code,
Compressed and fragmented in some hard drive, in a box, in a closet.
There was once so much to know on one single byte.
Now an impermeable universe rests and breaks
A part, like the contents of Ozti’s stomach
or his mother’s history stored in a jawbone.

Mulch fragments left in a yard after years of neglect
And a grocery list on the floor of a vacant house.
There is personality there, the last little
Glance at a stranger’s love.

Clothing in the southeast corner of a thrift store,
The part that people bypass
on the way to better days and better things.
Worn to a high school graduation
Or the day you retired from listening to lungs
And passing out branded band-aids, this was pride.
This was beauty.