... (xxv).

speak to yourself

in foreign accents--repeat your thoughts

in some other language, mumble

in the words you knew--before you knew words

to the ones who came before you,

leaning out from the shadows, spun round

behind the columns, the doorways

the first one who hid--behind a boulder

from what they could not see

whisper, what they whispered above

clouds of incense, through sheets

of smoke, choking out the shapes

of buildings, and street names

as they watched the fire feeding

--etched the script across

the film clouding their

eyes--sounded the letters

like beacons, in the hanging

fog, to sound the bulk

of the lies, the slope

of the memories

and when the wind

whipped free of the hillsides

it met them in cadence, but

when the air is still--it pays

to bow your head, to mumble

under the shade and shelter

of your eye-lids--it pays

to trace the figures small