DREAMS OF EMPIRE #3

Look! It is late afternoon, and the sun breaks open
the window, lighting for a moment what is usually invisible, gold motes clutched into twining cloaks.
This empire of dust, which settles overmy kitchen glass, my scattered, entrenched laundry,
my eyelids as they flicker and doze.

Through me drifts the Revolutionary War scene
that actually happened down the street, the first fissures of the Manhattan Project,
Boss Tweed’s popped vest button long since
ground down past the salt of the earth.

I blink my eyes again. Just dust.