Rumor cost me my chastity
and a noun became my name.
A pillar scrawled. A poem accused.
And poetry was initially chosen
for opposite reasons, not for this soiling,
not to be hounded with sorrow and blame.
My poem was to be a statue—
and I, nowhere in sight.
A metaphor: Day. Form: a gray evening,
never bothering to push into night.
A virgilian silence adding distance and height
to the only illusion allowed:
Steps perfect in the rock.
Sermon after sermon unsettling the crowd.