The Archaeologists

found pins by the millions while meticulously stripping a portion of Manhattan worked over by women who mended between appointments: the harlot’s artifacts include extracts of old wax paper wrappers filled with pin after pin, — imagine all sixteenths spilled from the inch ruler; imagine each a singular spoke of tin, each one fell stroke in a ledger; less than a cent of metal total, a dowry. Her nicks of time, dropped stitches, poke-throughs taken in, how each man may have fit against the satin hem of her memory.