You always washed artifacts br at the kitchen sink, your back br to the room, to me, to the mud br br you'd tracked in from whatever br neighbor's field had just been plowed. br Spearpoints, birdpoints, awls and leaf- br br shaped blades surfaced from the turned earth br as though from beneath some thicker br water you tried to see into. br br You never tired, you told me, of the tangible br past you could admire, turn over br and over in your hand—the first br br to touch it since the dead one that had br worked the stone.