Wednesday, March 5, 2008


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 over
my 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.

Monsters