Keystone

Keystone’s as old as Mohenjodaro.

I summon it from a past life.

The antediluvian lamp posts

dour roads and darting by-lanes

the bare ramshackle precincts in which

hydra-headed policemen

mass together to overpower

bystander and thief—

the cops’ heads get lopped off

and immediately reassert themselves:

there is no time for death

where there is such confusion.

Never did crouching bystander

give the slip, never

was thief captured in Keystone—

in the scheme of things he

made his getaway. All’s passed

like civilizations do: disappeared

while less tangible things persist.

There’s hardly a trace of Mohenjodaro

except in books discarded or sold.