The Smile

 

Where the wind carves
the slate black cliffs with sand
an image emerges.

Her hunger is like
the impossible breath:
Spirit of Statue.

(Dust at the base
of the ancient pillar,
the altar grooved
by a millenium of knees.)

She never tires of her pose,
never shivers in the wind.

Hewn naked out of the quarry,
damned to this eternal form,
her lips erode

but the smile remains.