I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

She was silent in her oldest age,

gray as Ozark flint, and hard.

Emptied of her geologic rage,

she lived with us. An asphalt yard



enclosed the tenement. We slept

and ate bologna on white, puffy bread.

The only things she had, she kept

in two small dresser drawers. One bed



for three of us: Grandma, Mama, me.

The fire in her was out, no smallest ember.

I said, Tell me your childhood, please.

She said, I don’t remember.



She might have given me an art

or trade, but she had neither.

Did I wait for that to offer her

my heart? I don’t remember either.