Just a Quarter Before

The blipped twist of tune
Promising the rest
In fifteen minutes,

Fragmentary bust
Of plastic Pallas
Next to Beethoven,

The Sapphic lyric
Saved from papyrus
In Oxyrhynchus,

All the detritus,
The kitsch of cultures
Wrecked on the pebbles

Of any given
Moment on any
Given shore—there’s more.