In Search of History

We go in search of history and find

a guillotine at a garage sale where the lady

of the house in curlers and stretch pants

sits in a lawn chair knitting, knitting.

The guillotine is ugly but has historic

value, we say, and take it home

to replace the wagon wheel in the yard,

but we can’t get the damned thing to work.

Nobody told us the lubricant of history

is blood. We thought it was money.

Is Grandma’s pickle crock historical?

How much is it worth? Could we convert

the rusted old tricycle into a fountain?

But history sings like a chain saw

in the woods, a freight train

in the night. History is the grizzled

Viet Nam veteran with his dog and sign,

begging at the intersection. History

is the yellow detritus of used condoms

at the edge of Lovers’ Lane.

History is a lottery ticket, a truck full

of cocaine approaching the border crossing,

a drunk on the wrong side of the highway.

History is hallucination, fantasy, a mirage

in the desert, as blind as justice.

Historians suffer from the fever of time

but never know what time it is.

They are mad poets making up stories.

The history of war passes a hat and we

put our children in it. Then somebody

gives us stars to put in our windows,

one star for each child.

On the streets of history there are more

guns than lovers, but who could stay

indoors on such a day when the chestnuts

have leafed out at last and lilacs

fill the air with the heartbreak of history.

“In Search of History” from The Last Person to Hear Your Voice by Richard Shelton, © 2007. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.