ishmael (ii)

if you are overwhelmed by the tide
and sink to the depths, in
the shadows

take comfort in the fact history
is held by many hands

I carved your name into the skyline
at the cadence of the peaks, rising
and falling--and into the doorframes

where people pass, and hurry to the
next thing, and you carved mine

into the asphalt, along the tree-tops
in the glass,
and someone else will carve

the names of the others, elsewhere.

the immense clutter of eyes is our horror
and salvation, a glyph and a cipher

there is no one so small that they will be forgetten
none so great that they can resist dissolution