David Roderick, "Excavation of the John Alden House"

We needed an alphabet to get our grid laid out.
Then we tore grass from the site and found
a pike-head, a spoon, a key with a hollow shank.
Voices behind us chipped into the ground,

our careful process of hunting, and then the ground
became an entrance to a room of cryptic scale.
The clays were tough but fill-soils gave with ease.
We found a bridle bit and hand-wrought nails,

a bell-metal blade with letters worn from its hilt.
The cellar bulged inward. Walls tilted in places.
With cautious hands we pulled grist
from the past, turned space into negative space.

We needed a new language to weigh each item:
a pintle and fork, the lock of a snap-hance gun.
The harder something was, the better chance
we had of finding it, yet the dirt saved a glass pane

and hoard of light, a written history of clouds.
We set up lines and sifting trays, ate lunch
beneath the plow zone. The chimney of stones
had been salvaged for something, but a trench

of ash remained. An Oak Tree sixpence fell
from a wall and relayed a human substance.
Then it owned us, that room, a museum
where other hands had slipped by chance:

a quill pen, a brass ring with the image of St. Peter
holding the key to Heaven. There was evidence
of water, of atmospheric weight. Ice divided
the ground, and though our alphabet was spent,

the dirt lulled us with empty spools, with half
of a cock's head hinge. The masonry was powder.
Some beams needed relief, so our backs provided it,
our shoulders. We thought we heard a murmur

from the earth, but the sound was a wasp nest
inside a skull. When our brushes found a delft tile
and wooden doll, a pin with an inlay of pearl,
we no longer knew the value of farthings or shells.

David Roderick