If this moment respects
its elders, if I honor
the memory of a lover’s laugh,
silence, topography
of an old acrylic seascape painting
gently against my fingertips— 

if 

I could be so expansive
with what’s left inside—broken,
scarred, intact—I might begin
to understand how to drop 

this word
nostalgia 

on its head and see
it shake itself free
of the mockery
and disapproving stares. I could 

touch it without leaving
a smudge.