in this tub I am thinking
how ruins speak to us;
the large bathhouses of
Rome, not just its its fora
bespoke its ancient fauna
and sauna play. and while
I scoffed at Trajan's
monumental column,
its attempts to threaten
in reliefs of weapons,
its bathhouses convinced, as did the sewer;
the rhetoric of monument retains power.
when ruins build themselves inside
our heads, they whisper contingent
inevitability. in this time I often think
on David Wojnarowicz's picture
of a denim jacket painted
IF I DIE OF
AIDS - FORGET
BURIAL - JUST
DROP MY BODY
ON THE STEPS
OF THE F.D.A.
in white letters
over a pink triangle,
making clear that corpses
are our human ruins, every
temple cemented on / of / for
cadavers, the charnel prepositions
of history. and now in calls
for blood sacrifice to the Dow,
we see a monument attempting
to incorporate. let us not let it be
to stocks' glory.
no monument can be worthy of the corpses
behind it: tragedy cannot be set in stone:
but that does not relieve the urgency of care,
the must of reducing suffering as we can.
so how may we make, what will we shape,
in and of these suffocating times,
those voices drowned in mucus?
I know not yet;
but let grief be not defang'd,
but furious, and scheming,
aware of its own strength.