Classic Poem

It's one of the few things we do
to advantage: deploy in line
of piping-white, scarlet and blue
blouses, trousers and tunics dressed-
left and dressed-right our
fresh-scrubbed replacements. Their
order, though come from us,
is so much superior to ours
it seems they'd do better without us
from now on. I believe they would.

It is not meant to look pretty—
which of course is one reason it does—
that high-flown way they form front
like cherubs and angels-militant
among their own scrolls and gonfalons.
We can only tear that down:
Blood/mud/manure/gravy the in-
disciplines of the dust.

A pity.











By permission of the author.