Single tenant
of his emptied city,
coat blown open,
he carries a bucket
of quicklime
to the coast.
The birds make
their derisive whistles,
watching from the woods.
On a sun-bleached
colonnade at dusk
he leans against a pillar
drinking discontinued colas.
The frieze behind his head:
children eaten by a fish.
It’s chiseled into stone.
He must have seen to it
himself, must have studied it
with approbation,
limestone in his hair.
Later in his whirlpool
he presents himself
a single darkened plum.
Watch the warping
of his face
in its reflection,
its flesh swallowed gratefully,
the pink stone spit
nto the garden below.
Former master of The Dove,
head bent to his chest
and water beading in his hair,
he sleeps in his bath
then wakes at dawn
to heft the refuse
from the tidal pools:
slabs of viaduct and filigree,
half-skeletons of ruminants.
His eyes eager and wild,
and wavering
like the honeycombs
at the edge
of his very vast forest.