I walk through roofs without a ceiling Past doorframes standing in the heat A photograph beneath the plaster Three faces staring back at me The paper bends, the colors weaken A woman, a boy, a man in work clothes Their eyes survive the town's disappearance Their names are gone before I know them Every wall gives up a little Every grain takes something more What was built by human hands Can vanish without a war If no one remembers, then it never happened If no voice remains, then the truth is ash A city can die beneath the sand Then die again when the memories pass If no one remembers, then it never happened No witness, no record, no answer back The desert does not bury the living It buries the fact A watch is stopped beneath a staircase Its hands locked at a quarter past four Someone waited through the final hour Someone never walked through that door A child's toy with one wheel missing Paint chipped blue along the side I hold it like a small confession A little life the dunes denied No bell rings from the buried tower No engine calls across the plain Time is not the thing that kills us It is being lost from every name If no one remembers, then it never happened If no voice remains, then the truth is ash A city can die beneath the sand Then die again when the memories pass If no one remembers, then it never happened No witness, no record, no answer back The desert does not bury the living It buries the fact I found the proof, but proof needs a keeper I found the objects, but objects can't speak The photograph fades into blank silver The watch forgets the hands of the week The toy sinks down with the doorway My footprints close in the blowing dust I say the city's name to the empty horizon The empty horizon says nothing back What was here? Who was here? Who will know? Who will know? If no one remembers, then it never happened If no voice remains, then the truth is ash A city can die beneath the sand Then die again when the memories pass If no one remembers, then it never happened No witness, no record, no answer back The desert does not bury the living It buries the fact I leave the watch beneath the sand I leave the photograph face down I leave the toy beside the doorway And carry nothing from the town By morning, even my tracks are missing By noon, I doubt the road I came If no one remembers what I witnessed Was there ever a city with a name?
