monument (for Z.)

All your arching parts are great in Bronze
Age senses of the word: enthralling form
of a horseback desert bowman tautly drawn
to raid some valley decadence, a sword
to coax from serfs and sandstone towering,
scowling traces of you. The colonnade
where you first made me stand a bedrock plinth
for tributary calves, Old Kingdom thighs,
Assyrian waist, Olmec chest, and a nose true
to the Semitic recall of your name.
I gape to rub and study and unearth
you Saturday mornings from the budget
Target comforter in your little upstairs tomb:
the digging endless, I am gladly ruined.