On Ai Weiwei’s “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn”

It started as a joke with my husband.

Chinese words once read right-to-left.

The photo is Chinese. Therefore reading right-

to-left, the backwards order, would be

legitimate. If it were legitimate,

it would not be backward. One urn shard

hunches like a territorial crab. It lords

a b(r)each. Rules are hard to forget.

The urn is knee-height above the floor.

The man stands like a territorial crab.

The photo is Chinese and once had

urn shards on the tiled floor. It started

as a joke (what are the rules?) with my

husband. We lord a breach of rules.

The man’s messy hair like urn shards.

The dis-shattered urn is a Han piece.

Dismemberment was earned by trea-

son. Rules for forgetting are harder.

The man has hair like my father.

The urn is held in a man’s hands.

The shattered urn lies on the floor.

Wrong: it lies in the past. The urn

has been made whole with no seams.

Pieces are dis-remembered. The man

with black hair unruly as crabgrass

will not drop the urn. But how can we

know? What are rules tomorrow

can’t breach? He has forgiven

the urn. They have forgiven each

other. Everything can now go unsaid.

Still: the man holds the urn in the air.

That’s hard to forget. Nobody does.