Pantheon

The city was getting wet.

Pigeons hovered like unclean angels.

I ruined my leather slippers

in the streets. Construction shook us,

dust covered all surfaces

of the apartment. How far should you dig

to go to the heart of the past:

the city piled on the graves, the century

passing over all of it—

the Neoclassical, the Brutalist, each with their ideas

of how to live.

The radio played politics.

Big tough men in the squares, some on horseback,

pointed backward with delicate fingers.

I played death-games

with my friend’s belt with the Tiffany buckle

until his initials were on my neck.

I listened to Lieder, and I felt the human soul

talking to me.

There were so many other men

who mixed their pleasures

then disappeared.

What if nothing were hidden between us?

What if freedom could lift us out of the dark pool

like my dad once did

when I didn’t die

and was young?