the fossil record

Southern Yellow Pine

for Jeff Jamieson

I have a postcard from the Peabody Hotel

in Memphis, Tennessee; the famous Peabody

of the ducks in the fountain, and the infamous

Peabody of  Faulkner and his occasional trysts.

I have had it for how many years now?

I never could decide who to send  it to,

so I have kept it. I look at it sometimes,

wondering why I  haven’t sent it, inscribed

with an ironic remark, some seemingly clever

retroactive  self-deprecation. It’s not that no one

is worthy, and it’s not that the postcard is even

very dear to me: I think I just like it to still be here.

Todd Young