Keeping (and Telling) the Past

How should I index myself so that you can retrieve & cut me 

from the 1970 catalogs 

of infant headshots & paste me beside you? This I wanted to know 

while the grandfather held up his 1940 photo
of three men laughing beside a new Buick. He said, 

“If you could identify them, then my life would be changed forever.” If anyone knows the names 

for paper as vulnerable as skin, then please tell me if I find my birth documents 

burned, ripped, or yellowed with information missing, or if I don’t find them at all? I listened 

as the panelists advised the grandfather to search the database, my body like too much information 

unsorted: all errors, useless without a way to see it
linked to get somewhere. My arms disappearing 

while the grandfather passed his laminated photo around the room. 

With permission of the author and White Pine Press