Pantheon
The city was getting wet.
Pigeons hovered like unclean angels.
I ruined my leather slippers
in the streets. Construction shook us,
dust covered all surfaces
of the apartment. How far should you dig
to go to the heart of the past:
the city piled on the graves, the century
passing over all of it—
the Neoclassical, the Brutalist, each with their ideas
of how to live.
The radio played politics.
Big tough men in the squares, some on horseback,
pointed backward with delicate fingers.
I played death-games
with my friend’s belt with the Tiffany buckle
until his initials were on my neck.
I listened to Lieder, and I felt the human soul
talking to me.
There were so many other men
who mixed their pleasures
then disappeared.
What if nothing were hidden between us?
What if freedom could lift us out of the dark pool
like my dad once did
when I didn’t die
and was young?
