Grain Statues

Grain statues in her honor

how they’re made to look so real

hot pink lipstick

on their chiseled loin

how they must have lived

and died or haven’t healed

or been revealed yet

we’ll salute their schools of thought

teaching even as they wait or crumble

spill onto the beach

craving, alone

and time has not been friendly to their excess of emotion

their way of doing nothing as if everything were coming

sooner or later and it helped

to feel around the crevasse

carved and fibrous tissue

for a trace

when they may have sailed away

very worried now

they’re a proponent of her cause

in attack

they’ll save what she has and still remain erect

dutifully mistaken for

a splinter on a plaque