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20 Virtual Memories of a Prehuman Subject for Sally Hemmings It is the infinite possibility, not the finite That drives us, alone for years and days While two oblique swans drown Down near the bottom Of old man Jefferson’s lake. There was a fire there one evening And Sally’s children danced along the shore With a sense of graceful confusion Only young slaves can achieve. I turned to see if she was watching, But she had walked away To sit beneath a sky of trees. After all, it was Spring And rain was saying hello To everything in its path. Did she happen to glance the clouds When words fell from his tongue, When lightning struck Her quarters in the far south distance, Leaving only shadows where bodies once stood? Please, do not tell me you do not understand. We were all lovers once, Both fictitious and sublime Long before we discovered The structure of genetic fear, The fear of genetic structure. Do you remember 21 Paintings on the ceilings of caves, Or the way ambitious young birds Evolved into dinosaurs and back again With and without wings? They, too, have left us With slivers of bone under microscopes, Listening to the wisdom Of fossilized dung—tracing footprints Of masters we never knew. Their tracks are infinite And dutiful in their memories Of things not returning— Or should I say things It seems we are forever returning to? ...

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