An old trick of
monotheism—tickle that pagan fertility bone
with a downpour,
after threats of drought.
On the last day
of the exhibit,
I stroll through glassed chunks of a found world.
The
broken-winged head of an unknown messenger god
stares at sandstone
flecks in my eyes.
Today
Long before the
common era of Christ, caravans marched
from
the
The day is a museum and I sip from aqueducts,
bathe inside
terracotta thermae, and bow before
the Treasury.
No one knows how
to call these gods
but they look familiar.
Bodies and votes
are counted, in butterfly ballots and bags.
I chisel a city
out of steep stone, its chipped cocoon,
I come in.
A woman fans a
Pan mask.
The Romans are coming, the Romans
conquer, the
Romans forget. An earthquake slams the amphitheatre
shut like an old
book that’s been open too long.
A missionary
in armor
brandishes his sword skyward, “Accept him as savior
or no rain.”
It’s time to leave,
and I gaze again at the nameless god.
His eyes, as
long as my hands, were not meant to be white and blank;
statues were
once gaudy with color, looked more human
than pristine
before erosion.
The radio reports the government reports
of successful
polls, and predicts the overnight lows.
ring in the
evening. Trade routes are changing. I don’t pray
anymore as I was
taught to—
I send love straight across, not up
to come back
down. Woe to the middlemen, to our middleman instinct.
Tonight I’m
talking out loud
not to myself, and it’s hard to
hear.
I’m a pilgrim on
a desert plain that was once an ocean floor.