if I look long at a gray marble wall
I find images
etchings
pictures emerge from the veins and striations
mustachioed men twirling their lassos
women in prayer wearing cowboy boots
rows of dark monkeys
skyline of Havana
pineapples bowing to half-peeled bananas
short-vested lobsters playing croquet
a school uniform that washed up in the bay
old teddy bear faces and rocket ship races
I understand they are not really there
not like I’m sitting upright in this chair
they’re only alive in the back of my eye
images coded in veins and striations
but what happens to them
what happens to me
after my ashes are tossed to the wind
am I more than before
am I less than a name
or only a schoolgirl they pulled from the bay.