Columbus-Columbia-Concubine

wig shops line Main Street

and what comes to mind is

our founding fathers

patriarchal gods adorned

with tendrils

rights taken away

in the name of liberty

hundreds of years before

I flirt with freedom

and centurions

then

we go underground and not

up the spiral staircase to no-

where

I think there’s smoke but

maybe I dissipated

in the ease

of your presence

bricks cave in on us

before we begin

and we don’t sound

the alarms

because it’s all just a metaphor

for embryonic plans