Courthouse Steps

to say no more of art than that it makes, by its very distraction
a mode of abiding

accordingly, its variations: each type of thread-and-piecework
named double engagement ring, log cabin, or broken dishes
all built on the same geometric figures—
precise interception of angle and line

so too each tale of love is rooted in that first tale: the poet
descending to the underworld
finally granted his shade, who'll follow him
only to disappear again. perhaps one version has them reunite
affixed in their solo chromospheres the stars, which,
to the human eye, appear to overlap

substanceless love
immune at last to gravity and time—

in texas (I might as well recount this as a story) there's a town
with a courthouse built on concrete and twisted iron
edified in red granite, capitals & architrave of red sandstone

with point and punch, a carver broached the effigy of his muse
he rendered her attractive features, down to the very blush

of course she spurned him,
of course there was another to whom she turned
love should not be written in stone but written in water
(I paraphrase the latin of catullus)

the sculptor carried on: not just the face of his beloved
but the face of her other lover:
snaggle-toothed, wart-peppered, pudgy
them both, made into ugly caricatures of themselves, as wanton
as the carver perceived them, and as lewd

well, craze and degenerate and crack: the portraits hold
though, long since, the participants have dwindled into dirt

beautiful. unbeautiful. each with an aspect of exactness

tread light upon this pedestal. dream instead of a time before
your love disfigured, a time
withstanding even crass, wind-beaten time itself.

D.A. Powell