The young men run from the hopes of their fathers,
on the pulse of a dawnbreath they pound the gigabytes
to a farcrash of surf. They surge past the old canopic gate 

oblivious to yellow bulldozers levelling pillars within 
a magpie that warbles in a steel thicket 
and an oboe deepnoting from bedrock. Pillars 

built by ptolemy and demetrios that housed 
in deepwords on papyrus and vellum, epics that
sidelined the glories of darheush and puru. Words 

that came to nothing in the serapium where daughters 
of berenice, chasing sweetwords and newbreath 
once laughed the high laugh of sex. Breath 

slaughtered by speeding generations now compacted 
to scant metres of debris tossed up by yellow pincers 
making room for steel thickets. Generations 

whose faded footfalls pound, pound the cisterns 
of night as a magpie warbles a high laugh 
and an oboe chases newbreath.