The Albert Memorial, by ​Forester McClatchey

The Albert Memorial, by George Gilbert Scott (UK) 1872. Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Albert Memorial
 
It takes a special zest to gore the clouds,
to slice the teeming world into marble fourths:
America, a bison primly bowed;
Europe, aurochs sillier than a corpse;
Africa, a camel trying to spit;
and Asia, that overheated elephant.

But you look uncertain, lounging in the thick of it,
draped in gold, in shade of golden tint,
and staring out at heaps of sullen wealth,
the marrow scraped and sucked from Egypt’s spine.
Did you ever hear, tapping on your shelf,
that long white stick of unmalicious time?

​Forester McClatchey

​Forester McClatchey is a poet from Atlanta, GA. His work has appeared in Pleiades, Bayou Magazine, and Thrush, among other journals.