History has an open door policy like a box trap for foxes. It lures the past in, and when the past nibbles at history’s cheese, the door snaps shut and the past is caught. When the past emerges as History, no one will know what game of bait and switch, what alchemy, has occurred behind closed doors.

II.

The past could be said to pass as gas for History’s fancy automobiles from the 1970’s. History likes a Chevy Impala or a Cadillac Seville. These cars need a lot of the past’s potent mix of hope, potential, and combustion to fuel themselves. Everybody loves History’s flash and power when you slam your foot on the accelerator, the way it shoots you forward and throws you against the back of the bench seat. Whatever’s left of the past leaves as exhaust through a tail pipe like a gas floated up into the atmosphere where its only choice is to dissipate.

III.

History says, isn’t it beautiful? The past isn’t so sure, and turns back to point at the record trailing behind the past like an infinite receipt or the flowing train of an endless wedding dress once flawless white, now sullied a dark brown going way back from so much reckless celebration, proof that it wasn’t all bad.

IV.

History, the past says, you are a bully, a castle, a fort, a battlefield too big to ignore, too solid to be unmarked, too conspicuous to be cloaked, and all you want is to be a monument. But you are not – you are an ambiguity, a bundles of holes, a cycle of your own silences. You want us to honor your immensities, but how much can we reduce what happened to what is said to have happened? How long can you pretend your solidity is not a bottomless silence?