Future Anthropology

When they find our fossils
(if someone is alive and seeking
those parts of us we will have left)
scattered among the bones
as telling as flint points
or Venus totems

will be checklists,
thousands of
fragmented checklists
asking:

have I eaten
the right breakfast,
taken the right pills, 
done the proper number
of reps, laps, poses,
eaten the right portion sizes,
slept the right amount,
breathed through 
correct nostril, played
with the right literary forms,
assumed the right positions,
smiled and kissed and 
hugged enough,
shat the right shits,
pissed the right color,
hit my marks, 
saved enough to die on,
lived the right amount of years,
died well and peacefully
with a minimum of trouble
to others?

They will speak of us
as a people
who lived long lives,
though it will be hard to say
whether or not
we lived well  — as hard for them
to determine
as it is, apparently,
for us.