Piazza with Fountain and Statues

A marble figure prods a fire. We step

into the sun’s flare. What I feared has happened.

On your skin the lightest touch makes you flinch.

Everywhere we turn, statues’ sunken eyes

spill their vision over stone. No more seeing

where the gold leaves come from. All night this piazza

will be lit with anonymous bodies

held by the broken arms of others.

If I could I would let down their stone-hair

and give them hands to touch the leaves

crowning their heads. I’d graft on

the proportionate finger touching the space

behind the bony ear and adjust the palm

under the dove. Does our flesh makes us true?

Here are the cool lemons I have sliced for you, here

the light-winged hummingbirds asleep by the thistle.

No more needing to prove the dead

were living. No more keeping out the world.