I.
When I think of your heart, I think of a snakebite to
the chest.

II.
Uncountable lifetimes ago there was an empire in
Egypt. We burned the libraries. We destroyed the
temples. Everything that was beautiful then is lost
to us now.

III.
These days, poetry is the only language I know how
to speak. But you speak anthropology. You speak
hieroglyphs. You spend your life studying things I
only bury in metaphors.

IV.
When I think of my heart, I think of stone tombs.

V.
Last year, they found Cleopatra’s palace sunk deep
in the Mediterranean sea. But anything they could
learn from the ruins of her home is not worth empty-
ing oceans for.