There is no Renaissance here

and that is to say the vestige will haunt you
            again tonight. Your rubbled body submerged

in starlight. Take pillar as bone and arch
            as the curvature of your spine. You cannot talk

about bodies and you will realize this poem
            is no longer about you. Neither is it about

the intricate archeology of a self-righteous
            daughter. Sometimes you imagine what it means

to rebuild antiquity. Your father an architect
            in a past life, kneeling over converging parallel

lines and Brunelleschi’s dome. Wonder why
            he was praised for mimicking the archaic as if he

could bring back the deceased. You decipher
            revolutions from cryptic dreams. It’s deceptive,

how you will mistake dawn for rebirth.
            Master stoicism and perhaps you are not human

anymore. Shapeshift into Michaelangelo’s
            David, pose as artwork. You will be loved

and nothing more. Meanwhile, a historian
            will confuse marble for creation, silence for

survival. You will learn to paint over punctured
            history as erasure, framed into a façade of illusion.

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