ISSUE: Winter 2009
What if it were not
such a tragedy
to outlive
one’s nation,
if it were simply
an invitation
to accept all doors
to all hallways, however
dark and cold, as gates
of the amphitheater at Pergamum
rising, fanning
impossibly heroically
up the misty flanks
however steep
and rough, aspiring
to the summit calmed
by the shadow rungs of temple,
forum, and library,
and the Great Altar
of Zeus, square and crowning it all,
wreathed in titanic fighters
and screeching gods,
and for many decades now
in Berlin.
