It was

always the messy and nonlinear parts
that confounded. Not the science, nor
the idea of evidence only as a certain 
type of artifact that may be recorded 
and tagged, measured, assigned space 
in a catalog. But one should be able to walk 
into an archive and perceive the lushness 
of that time in the feel of paper, the sudden 
hurt in the curved darkness of tortoiseshell 
combs resting on a vanity. Nothing could have 
prepared me for the tenderness of tattered 
bedclothes, dust in every crevice of wooden 
cookie molds, the faded cursive on the flyleaf
of a missal: My dearest— a message cut in half.