Road to Byblos

Mechanized time
was an invention created
to sustain entire empires.

And love, I knew, could be expressed
through an idiom about graves.

We rode past the beachside
nightclub and three
cement factories.

I wasn’t in love.
I never knew what time it was.

Smoke unfurled from the air base.
A pregnant dog howled
under a fig tree.



Reprinted from Pleasure Principle (Scribner, 2024) with the permission of the poet. All rights reserved.