Around the Doryphorus
at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

I stand in still time, drenched with centuries
That washed away the ghost from where I stand.
Now shades of my lost character watch me
From years beyond the ken of my command.
Sir Justice knows the letter of the law:
He hung his brother from a comma's tail.
For Lady Temperance, he swallows whole
Ancestral forests where their fathers wail.
Dame Prudence quotes a catalogue of facts;
She reasons like a whining, senseless drone.
His Majesty Stan Courage roams in packs;
He howls his party's voice, yet fears his own.
My shades encircle where I stand in view.
They'll pose in thought, but never in the nude.