Ending
a passage thrumming with shadow,
totems
of dynasties cracked to oblivion,
they
power with figures cut
clear by knock and gouge.
Typed
words before - Class I, Class II,
Class
III. Provenance founders
on order adrift; snakes crook
near
mirrors, rings clot
over slipped
moons, hooded riders
clump
on horseback. They gather;
an old
alliance of symbol and silence,
confused
in the half-light here.
I
stretch for fullness under my hand,
find
their defeat in fibre-glass,
a real few stacked beyond my reach.
Back at
the house, they meet by walls
corrupt of mortar; block totters on black.
You scrape
away the past year's leaves;
nipped grass breaks under the rake.
"I
thought you'd gone back home."
The
stones are dethroned
as each
word chisels the air
between us. Shattered now,
what's
dead stands dumb.
