The Arch

Of all living monuments has the fewest

facts attached to it, they slide right off

its surface, no Lincoln lap for them to sit

on and no horse to be astride. Here is what

                                                 I know for sure:

Was a gift from one city to another. A city

cannot travel to another city, a city cannot visit

any city but itself, and in its sadness it gives

        away a great door in the air. Well

        a city cannot except for Paris, who puts

on a hat styled with pigeon wings and walks

through the streets of another city and will not

even see the sights, too full she is of the sights

already. And within her walk her women,

        and the women of Paris looking like

        they just walked through an Arch...

        Or am I mixing it up I think I am

with another famous female statue? Born

in its shadow and shook-foil hot the facts

slid off me also. I and the Arch we burned

to the touch. “Don’t touch that Arch a boy

we know got third-degree burns from touch-

        ing that Arch,” says my mother sitting

for her statue. She is metal on a hilltop and

so sad she isn’t a Cross. She was long ago

given to us by Ireland. What an underhand

        gift for an elsewhere to give, a door

that reminds you you can leave it. She raises

        her arm to brush my hair. Oh no female

armpit lovelier than the armpit of the Arch.