An Anarchist Burns The Verandah

I come to the forgotten house
and not to lose my resolve
nor to seek some souvenirs
but to walk alone under the arch,

where boots of masters and generals
of armies have also stood in solitude.

Who comes asking for bread at your door
but the Buddha wounded by his charge,
and though you soap his wounds he
dies quietly in your bath (last words
about children selling car-parts in Africa
and the seasonal rain on deserts I don’t
remember).

The shades cast on the verandah
and the vines on the fence beyond which
a gang of boys wreck with hammers the
face of an angel in the graveyard.