What's the (projectile) point?

I am handing you a map to guide you

to the place where I fell into the past.

Just off the highway, in a southern desert, walk

past remnants of passing cattle, over

downed barbed wire, tracing red sand bootprints,

to a granary under a cliff’s overhang.

In it, dry corn, gone uneaten for centuries—

its hard, pearl teeth rough on my hands, leaving

marks of their years in scrapes on skin and dirt.

Atop the cliff, a craftsman left behind their wealth

of stone tools—still sharp, shining in sand and sun.

When someone hands you the past, you pick it up.

Look into its years and eyes, fall in.

If you don’t, after all, what would be the point

but a piece of chert? What would be the corn but a

lonely husk in the dirt, memories untasted?