Poem: Capitol Shirt

This was originally published in Wilderness House Literary Review, and is based, ekphrastically as they say, on an artwork by Maine's brilliant anti-war artist, Natasha Mayers (picture below, used by permission).

Fly Well In the Dark,

Owl

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Capitol Shirt

a ribcage of policy
flatters the tie.
paunches of marble,
silkblood river red.

liberty
small on the cupola,
weathered in green copper,
too shrunk to see.

the blue
of the imported wool
opens without hands,
without ears,

no face.
a humanless

authority.
little skulls in the potbelly’s
rotunda. pillars replace
the throat.

just one more
architectural carcass
of another patriarchal
turkey.


(inspired by “Capitol Shirt,” 2012, Natasha Mayers, Acrylic on postcard, 4x6 inches)


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