I have not visited this site in two years. The land
is wordy and overgrown, strewn with broken poetry.
Stray commas dot the hills. Here, I once built
with rhymes taller than truth, and fell
through the roof of my mouth into a furnace.
The world's center is just like any kingdom: it refuses

to out-burn its splendour. No longer on parade
as architect, I limp around with a spade
to bury one thing, then uncover the next. This must go:
the saddled skull that had never controlled
these faultless limbs - until we learn to write, or stab,
or hold. I'll dig with hands fuelled not by dream,

but restoration. Dusting myself clean as an egg
will hatch no metaphor, because silence breaks
on the east. Sometimes, not always, the value of jade is
measured in calligraphy, just when the sphinx's beauty
becomes her riddle. And it is good enough
that men may part before a murmuring sea.

If there is a center to knotted histories,
it unravels patiently, from kingdom into myth.
In all attempts to flee, to row, to bail out dirty water,
I pour oceans into my boat.
Turkey is the dream; this is real, the conclusions missed.
Untraceable city. The torn veil. This.