You stalk the silent lives of ruins

quietly in the forum the
feet stirring up centuries and
grain distilled into broken bread
a hundred thousand foreign memories
seep through strata of skull –

the great house
rising resolute from the dry plain
the dusty riverbed
the dried-up civilization of hunters
gathered along the ancient floods, fat with
decay. a lizard sleek, sides heaving,
takes the throne and eats the deserts' seeds

my past never lived
but still I recall
the first supernatural flame, surprising with possibility
a hundred years of war, all the same
the men they followed toward Valhalla, Sheol and Heaven
the women, resolute and waiting at the gates. fists poised.

to stalk alongside with the crawling king—
silent lives of full voices and
the hum of dead birds—
ruins razed and lifted in repetition
with the water, with the wind—
something still is missing

I would offer up my anything,
blood and sunsets and shed off skins,
a desperate nameless sacrifice,
to live to see more of what has already passed.