roman empire

i don't believe in the roman empire. 
if the face-eaters can deny my histories
i can deny theirs too. i do not believe 
in england or their colonies. 
there is no such thing as a volcano.
do you know in pompeii, they didn't
actually call it pompeii? we don't know
the name of their city. we call it pompeii
because some guy saw the word
written in the ruins. i too have been
a word written in the ruins misinterpreted 
as a city. when the ghosts visit
are they lost? do they say to one another,
"there is no such thing as pompeii."
there is no such thing as fish. those are just
our ancestors who did not give up
on the deep gods. there is no such thing
as birds, those are just angels who are
not greedy. who come down. the journey
is so long that they always forget their messages.
forget even that they are angels. 
i often walk into another room in my house
forgetting what i was looking for.
have you ever lived in a city that forgot
its name? i have. a town in the mountains
that stole a dead man & named the soil
after him. we are strange beings as far 
as life goes. i do not believe in a capital g
god which is huge relief. no one should have
to believe there is a man in the sky. 
instead, i see the eyes of the trees. i see 
all mountains as sleeping bears. i do not
believe in death which means i do not 
believe in the united states. of course i see it.
all the fires & the cows & the guns. 
if the wind would have blown a different direction
pompeii would have survived. instead,
hot ash made statues of their bodies. 
in the early days of the covid pandemic,
i also lived in a city of statues. everyone stood still
in new york. ghost streets. empty trains 
running as if the volcano had not
just decided to be real.