The Fort

From the weathered boards knots pop

like the eyes of potatoes. From brick

salients not a clink of a pupil in a loop-

hole. Cannon, yes, but without their kick.

Ironically or entirely appropriately,

who can say, the Fort will not admit us.

The reenactors are going home; we see

them retreat, backs x’d with sus-

penders, toward the forest housecleaned

into state park. Ocean beyond the ramparts

suggests that stem-celled seconds fiend-

ishly agglomerate with fits and starts

into unprecedented forms. And so

who cares that a fort’s built on a sand bar,

that we don’t make it in, and go

only so far round the perimeter.