Barren Woman

Empty,

I echo to the least footfall,

Museum without statues, grand with pillars, porticoes, rotundas.

In my courtyard a fountain leaps and sinks back into itself,

Nun-hearted and blind to the world.

Marble

Exhale their pallor like scent.

I imagine myself with a great public,

Mother of a white Nike and several bald-eyed Apollos.

Instead, the dead injure me with attentions, and nothing can happen.

Blank-faced and mum as a nurse.