There’s once, around an hour in,

You break.

You’ve forgotten to play at listening to your plain-pretty friend

who’s sure that dream she had about you was prophetic,

Certain, she goes on and you,

you cheat out to the rest of the restaurant, and

 

There!

 

I catch in your eye —

There, again:

There is hot moonlight on cold sand

and some hundred winking hieroglyphs atop

a temple, long-abandoned,

devoted once but to an un-finished God.

 

The waitress comes to clear away the plates.