Signs Fixed in the Limit

Sumerian doesn’t distinguish
Grammatically between genders
But between humans and deities

(The animate case) and animals,
Plants, and bricks (the inanimate case).
We’re reminded of those religions

That divide all ensouled from unsouled.
Languages have to fix things somehow.
A sign is a quantum, however

Greater spacetime may remain a curve.
For a sign, you’ve got to scorch the earth
Around it, burn each name’s boundaries—

The existence of meaning may be
Puzzling, but it is definitely
Discrete. How discretion collapses,

How large a hegemony can get
Before it’s revealed as another
Wave in an endless ocean of waves,

Never wholly distinct from neighbors,
That’s another problem no one’s solved
Yet. In the meantime, approximate.