You've built memorials to broadcast your credentials
laying the corners of obelisks with plumb lines
that mimic the sun's rays and the innocence of clouds.
But in other more fabled cities
the townspeople speak of miracles -
silent films with subtitled clues to headstone rubbings.
These have been collected in a book
with line drawings and brilliant endpapers -
the book that is now being auctioned off
in a red room filled with empty seats.
You've waited here in the wings with your bid
and now the endgame approaches.
It has several stops to make before it arrives
to take on more passengers
unlike the biplane that made an emergency landing
here in your cornfield a few days ago.
