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DAVID RILEY

Abandoning Archaeology.

Millennia’s walls bite the bleached land.
Laid bare by the square, these reincarnations
Gift us the patina of knowledge.
Beachcombed from time’s surf, loom stones and latrines
Invent afresh unmet, brief-glimpsed lives,
That will, shaman-wise, predict alleyways.
Next to me, Sara’s in scientific prayer
Brushing dust from something she hopes is a coin.
I smile, enjoying her breasts for a while
The curve of her hip checkmates scholarship.
Is this sin? Replacing history with her?
Is salvation praising resurrected ghosts?
Sara toils on. The spectres and I join hands:
Revelation lifts us across the sands.