The Sides of an Obelisk
Three thousand five hundred are the years
I’ve travelled, past all my known forebears
past several kings named Henry
outbreaks of the plague there, and there
to be pinpointed along time’s gradient
where creatures are shaped into language
and perception carved into stone
becomes reliable memoir.
I look for my name
enclosed within a cartouche
ask if anything awaits the common man
in the afterlife.
A glimpse away and it vanishes
to a compass needle showing pagans
the quickest way to heaven
or a candle, reflecting its many-storied faces
and I’m a moth, lost
in more than a million days of light.
Line 1 paraphrases a line from Amy Crutchfield’s ‘Tower’.