The truth then about these numberless inscriptions appears to be that they were all travellers’ graffiti.
          —Petrie¹

                    i.

You read of me and I’m not there.
Sign and signified, why even
disappear when my shadow lies
beside my leaving’s meaning, leans

into being sighs deepening
into minds believing we wear
what absences think we can bear.
When deceiving, how even things

we conceal have a way with their
ordeal which can heal, reveal for
years what only in moments bare
nude truths we’d refused, realized

          only in knowing no one cares
          if it’s real, so long as each time

                    ii.

we tried we neared god unaware.
Similar, then, disappearing
into prayer incensed tongues lift nights
from high despair onto ceilings

against which your faith exhaled bangs.
Blares an angst my mistakes hear,
a hurt dealt that we both might deal.
No hard feelings, then, since, in between

waking and sleep, ruminator,
all the hell you think your heart held
mine revelled in sharing. Take, for
example, how trust amplifies

          touch, that wounds opened for strangers
          are temples through which two fools fly.

__________
¹W. M. Flinders Petrie, “Violation of the Pyramid” in “Chapter IX. A Sketch of the History and Design of the Great Pyramid” of The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh: New and Revised Edition, published at London by Histories & Mysteries of Man Ltd. in 1990; page 90.