PREFECT

The prefect's statue does not accept that he is clay
Nor that the state he served fell centuries ago.
He stares back into each face peering at him
In the display case where he keeps his office.
Some day the vandal who chipped his nose
With a stone idly tossed will surely return;
The prefect will arrest him in the name
Of the Empress Regnant Wu Zhao.

MEMORY PALACE

On the advice of Dame Frances Yates

I built a memory palace years ago

(A small one; more a villa, really)

Stocked with symbolic statues,

Enigmatic pictures, weapons, geegaws,

And instruments I cannot play –

All intended to refresh my recollection

Of the vast stores of information

I intended to acquire. (My childhood

Was a series of flags, a flutophone

And a gaudily dressed toy bear).

When my house vanished I moved

Into the palace's old stables

Where someone -- not me; I can’t drive –

Had abandoned a Knox Runabout

With three flat tires. The palace itself

Has been much abused; cats and ninjas,

For no reason I can understand,

Broke in and, apparently disheartened

By the paltry memories I'd left,

Sanded some down and repainted them

Sold or gave away many others,

Dragged in things that caught their fancy

And rearranged everything. I am pretty sure

I was not actually the criminal mastermind

Known as the Dreadlord Zircon 

The summer after fourth grade and yet

I recall so clearly the highlights of his career
And --if the statue of Trismegistos isn't lying –

Exactly where my gang and I hid our loot.