Public Art

Mark J. Mitchell

The fired living statue, his silver pants

sagging, a torn jacket warms his stiff arm

when he passes you on Market Street. Calm

as cracked paint, he looks through silver eyes past

you, through the glass shelter, at a statue

being raised. Pewter colored, he sees her feet

above canvas that guards the modesty

of what may be a woman. One he knew.

You force your vision on him. Blue light shifts

to yellow. Spanish angles form shadows

from the Ferry Building, knife sharp. The slow

ex-statue crosses the plaza as they lift

the giant woman to frightening height.

It blocks the tower. This former still man

vanishes in her shadow. Foreign sands

summon him as bells sound, cracking light.

Mark J. Mitchell  ha estado en el oficio de la poesía durante 50 años.  Su colección más reciente es Something To Be. Una novela escrita por él, titulada A Book of Lost Songs, fue publicada recientemente por Histria Books. Gusta del baseball, Louis Aragon, Dante, y de su esposa, la activista Joan Juster. Actualmente reside en San Francisco.

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