Ideally, time
would never really lapse—
time being too clever
and too quick for that.
Ideally, it's just you
and me—losing little bits of it
grabbing coffee,
breaking up, falling
down drunk, signing
contracts, planting trees, eating
pizzas topped with
hot-dogs in front of the TV—
and not often enough, it's
a few lazy photographs, never taken
by either one of us
to whichever abandoned photomat.
Ideally, it's just
my trusty built-in camera
running out of batteries, it's only
your imperfect lenses
whose apertures
like to close at random
or else open halfway, then stop;
in between which
the Giza pyramids
appear to be quickly needled
away by erosion, or all
at once, the great cathedrals
seem to groan
and collapse—into celebrated
museums, with inglorious
gift shops.
