How Sweet and Proper It Is

Color of silver, surrounded by barbed wire,

the tower rises from the hill like a thumb

from a fist. A young man climbs from his horse,

begins to crawl through the wire toward a door

at the base of the tower. His clothing and skin

are torn but that is partly what he came for.

Finding the door locked, he further bruises his body

by breaking it down. Then he begins to climb.

Who would have thought bats so plentiful?

At the top of the stairs he finds a round chamber

and he's so excited he doesn't notice the men

sleeping on the floor. He only sees the woman

arranged neatly on the stone couch. She even looks

stone-like and her white dress seems stone-like

and she has the face of statues on public buildings:

justice or civic virtue. The young man knows little

but what he knows convinces him that she's beautiful.

He runs toward her, but in his eagerness he doesn't

see the movement of eyes beneath lids, the slight

fluttering of the lashes. He doesn't ask himself

why she's there or what his role must be: whether

as an actor in some Freudian joke or in a fable

about what it means to serve the state. Reaching her,

he presses his lips to hers, feels the coldness

of stone, feels his own body's warmth drain from him.

Then, rising, he's exhausted and he tells himself

he must catch his breath and he takes his place

among the others on the floor whom he is just now

coming to notice.

Shortly, a second man appears

at the top of the stairs, and his clothing and skin

are torn but that is partly what he came for.

And he's so excited he doesn't hear the snoring

but runs toward the woman on the stone couch.

Outside a third man pauses by the barbed wire,

while miles away another steps from his front door,

looks at the blue sky and spring birds fluttering

from maple to oak, and he decides to saddle his horse.

Perhaps he can find some quest, something to make

a name for himself, and climbing into the saddle

he stares off across the hills and far away he sees

the flicker of some silver thing, perhaps beckoning.