Seneca At The Baths Poem by Ernest Hilbert

Is the ideal a ruler to crack knuckles
Or shaft sited to repair fractured bone?
A trellis to train vines through a season
Or fence to divide, secured by patrols?
A ladder to scale, or a proscribed zone
Locked with razored gate for no good reason?
Perhaps a lightning rod, crackling, softly,
In gauze of humid air, eager for pure
Shock, rare moments of spine-beaming brilliance.
Or cigarette, fired at the tip, slowly
Smoldered, drawn through lips, not meant to endure,
Dispersed as smoke, thinning, growing immense.
Never a fortress, but what serves as home,
Vandal camp on the frail borders of Rome.