Did you mean
to drop

your entire meaning
for us before us

in our
quiet moments

as if they were held
in a holy sphinx

carved
from hard sugar

into such clear water
that we could not help

seeing it dissolve
so swiftly

that we ended up
with a permanent ghost

unsettled
in our memory

as if we’d seen 
your face in that pale shadow

of deity and from that
understood

how all things 
work in tandem

and now we 
have forgotten

all but the fact 
that we once knew

and sit bitter in
the aftermath

of that lost, melted
truth

because if you did it
knowing how we

would fail
and despair

it becomes hard for me
at least

to credit any effort
toward art or

relationship or
society at all if it you

are to be
part of it