Mimesis

The fat sun of Atlantic autumn burnishes equally
 the gold leaves of a ginkgo and a police cruiser’s chrome.
The officer by the fender is dressed in silver and black,
 leather and steel, insignia of rank, light body armor

In homage to Egyptian foot soldiers, samurai, all
 the great forgotten infantry of Troy.
The young man facing him is dancing—if dancing means
 moving with great care to the rhythm of a moment.

The officer leans forward, the smaller man leans back
 matching him inch for inch. The officer moves
His right foot, the other moves his left, his T-shirt
 suddenly a false skin sutured with sweat.

The sun makes no distinctions. The sun does not divide
 epic from tragic, gnomic from dithyrambic.
It sheds the luminous fragments of its dying godhead
 equally on the frog and the fireplug,

The cathedral and the whirlwind. I stand at the crosswalk,
 my arm linked in a woman’s arm, though no one
Is there. The cop cocks his head to the right, the perp
 cocks his to the left at an equal and opposite angle.

If he could only become the other, he would vanish
 into the safety of a badged chest or the vaulted chamber
Of a Smith & Wesson .45. Sun in my eyes. The tear
 of the great release. Shadow your enemy,

The martial artists say. Become the mirror,
 Reflect the swordless sword. When the music starts again
The dancers bow, then shimmer into the counterpoint
 of selflessness, law, the lyric of likeness, which is love.