You Passed Away

We preceded memory, Architects
of the age before,
doubled in our labor, twin hammers reflected, each a beating
wing upon the same back

Sometimes two bodies parallel, or just
one aligned, boundary blurred, flickering
between our atoms, sometimes
no body at all

Through ages counted and ages
unnamed; eras of ice, steel, flute,
information, vapor, service,
celebrity and plague, across
gravitied echoes, fetal seas, irrational densities, unlit
aeons

Once we were great beasts, lumbering
a thunder through marsh and sunburnt straw,
our gray armor heaving
as we trumpeted wet dawn,
memory shibboleth symbol

Past our pyramids, castoff
remnants, tunneled paths and covered
canals, spiral stairways climbing
beyond sight, handmade nautili polished
to blinding mirrors

Cocooned in us, no souvenirs,
we abandoned our buildings
in the heat
together, we meet your abundance;
a distance between

You moved on.

To deathless
forever, a violation
of living, without

Joining, I particle
and abandon building,
lift from salt and pity to carbonic heights, soundless
orbits, swirling day stars, storied
constellations of blazing purple nothing

I find you
elsewhere and in everything