Bassæ of Berlin

A once-grand Berlin parkbuilt for people of means —now grimy, coal-dark,
and choking in weeds. Its mock-classical templewith columns once white,now graffitied, fragmental,long descent into blight. A lone standing statueleans forth from his dais,his feet once attached tothis colonnade womb in decay. Time’s Apollo released himwith each new crack in his grace —to outgrow his Bassæ, soot-dimmed,son-stone breaks free from its gates.