This sun or this morning's star sinks
Into the blind spot of temples
Would we drift off the defaced map
If we rose and dogged its profound plunge
We chase ourselves on phantom
Legs and the dirt that grows them

If, ransacking the ziggurat's
Shabby bricolage of shops,
We defile the virgin dust
And the chemist's mouldy balm,
Overtake the queue of bones
For the sanctum's cut-rate bargains,
Would for this alone
The dome collapse upon us?
We chase our past
But pass our chase

It is the arcane, glamourous dummies
That scan us
The arcane, glamourous intercom
That hems
It's the neon script that reads
It's us who are being read.
We are almost on display for sacrifice
At the counter in no sun.