Ghost Ocean

It’s peaceful and it’s boring,
Now that the empire’s shrinking,
No ships on the horizon.

The sun sets on their absence.
What have you ever wanted
Except this sort of silence?

The face of the empress shines
From the coins in your pocket.
Somewhere, subjects still cheer her.

Not here. Here all her oceans
Are ghosts, are lakes contracting
Beneath retreating glaciers.

Somewhere, someone’s writing
Space operas, inventing
Names out of mashed-up phonemes

Mixed from the known languages
Once spoken in the empire.
Here no one speaks but such ghosts.