Fates of Empires
The room is trapped

in bas-relief.

A cock-of-the-walk

god lists, his arms lopped

off. I slip down rain-scalded

stairs and I’m dwarfed

in the courtyard.
I lose the crowd

for market stalls

and thumb a stack

of postcards: Angkor

Wat in high gloss

stock. Artificial light

rakes the lotus pond

where dogs cool off.
A flea-bitten grey

sleeps in a thatch

of palms. She’s seen

it all before. Cities

sacked by one bad flood

or a king hell-bent

on new religion. I buy

a cone of roach-dark

nuts and pluck

off the shells like wings.