The Ladder
It ascends into the darkness,
beyond the frame, where the eye
may not follow it. Its steps,
solid near the cobblestones,
grow ghostlier as they meet
their shadows in the entrance
without a door. The men
must have built it out of their
fears, and the sun must have
cast its twin out of its
nightmares, visions of carvers
and stonemasons raising walls
all around the sky. The mouth
of the brick-daughter, petrified
in its grimace, fails to lament
her emptiness, impaled on
the ladder.
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 