Like missing-person posters at the local mall,

the faces of the last rulers of the Despotate of Epirus

look out from their keeps in tapestries and icons

with enough detail to be plausible; but,

as I squander an hour or so by tapping on links

for ‘predecessors’, or ‘fathers’,

and lineages stumble backwards over history’s uneven pavement—

arrival of a greater power from somewhere else,

or the matrilineal line cracks

with treachery over supine scions—

their faces take on the physiognomy of doubt itself,

vulnerable to time’s rucked weather; a muddy coin

waiting to be dislodged by a plough;

mosaics tiled in cloud and snow; a fresco

in a ruined abbey, that’s half profile, half stain,

reminding me how I used to procrastinate, making

photocopies of photocopies of photocopies

in the library basement: the very last one always

precarious, like something almost appearing

in rain’s cold, dented pewter.

​

Live Encounters, May 2026