Keith Taylor
I shouldn’t have taken it,
particularly to sit
like a neglected trophy
on the ledge in my study
between a piece of copper
I bought in the Keewanaw
and some dead coral shaped like
the Venus of Willendorf
I dove for in the ocean
on the windy and wild side
of Oahu 20 years
before I visited Greece.
I should have left it beside
the new, paved road bisecting
the Acropolis of Rhodes
mixed in with construction junk,
cement, and broken shoes.
Not the Parthenon Marbles
getting dusty in Bloomsbury—
just my two inch piece of red clay
with a distinct, delicate,
rounded ridge hand-formed and fired
30 or 3000 years ago
for someone needing
a pot to carry water
or wheat up to the temple—
still, I should have left it there.