← v9n1, Spring 2010
Poetry · Volume 9, Number 1

Campidoglio

Paul pushes him out of the palace

and onto the Capitoline

at the edge of town, Caput Mundi

of executions and assignations.

Enough painting, you need some fresh air.

The Holy Father actually winks.

The Great Man, old, no longer even

partly pagan, spins the hill toward

St. Peter’s bones and plants an emperor

plump in the piazza. Constantine,

Marcus, he’ll go on forever raising

his hand toward his successors. Up

is what the old man finds he wants,

lifting the city on a ramp toward the clouds

prodded by the relocated campanile.

Chaos, cosmos—he paves the mud,

prolongs the pilasters. (Nobody’s

ever done that before!) He walls off