---
title: 'Swan song'
project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
...

Swans fly overhead singing goodbye \
to we walkers of the earth. You point \
to them in formation, you tell me \
you are not you. You are the air the swans \
walk on as they journey like pilgrims \
to a temple in the south. A curtain \
there separates me from you, swans \
from the air they fly through. I say \
that you are no longer the temple, \
that you have been through fire \
and are now less than ash. You are \
a mirror of me, the air without a swan. \
Together, we are each other. You \
and I have both nothing and everything \
at once. We own the world and nothing in it.