John Isaacson
Response

History
By Amy Moffitt
Inspiration piece

Everything bears marks of everything else.

This street has tire tracks
from where he hit his brakes too hard.
That sidewalk still has chalk on it
from where the children played weeks ago.

This tree has a name carved in it,
and a stub from where you cut off a branch.
This chair has leaves and pollen on it,
and that one a stain from
where she dropped her glass of wine.

Even the raindrops have fallen before
in another place, in another time…
have soaked other soil,
have changed other plans,
have made other streets shine.

We are marked, all of us,
made up of matter that
came from outside ourselves.
We are made up one another,
porous and fluid
and spilling into each other,

Like these raindrops, running together,
down the window,
down the wall,
out of sight,
into time.