So you don’t want to make history?
Could use concrete to call it ruin.
But weren’t we both impressed by Rome,
and the columns rolled and strewn?
We liked to imagine it at its peak
when streets were new and baths were whole.
Somewhere there’s a postcard hologram
I bought, corners bent and rolled,
that if you tilted gently you’d see
it change from crumbled to alive.
This land was once ripe and fires lit!
You think it’s late this claim to revive?
You think this bed better built over?
Maybe this lover is rousing Pluto,
this lyre and song too dissonant
and his gait and stain too Butoh.
Don’t turn too soon, see the riptide steal!
Leave the antihero to roam the desert
of this purgatorial freedomland
where hope and promise invert
while the next ones come in to loot
the rubble to build down the road.
Yet in their hands they’ll find it crumble
and dust, fooled to believe it’s gold.