You would have said, seeing the thoughtful reflection of his eye, that he had already...been through the revolutionary apocalypse.*

I live in fear that I will die and meet him;
Liberty’s marble lover who once proudly proclaimed that
the nineteenth century was great, but the twentieth century will be happy.
I fear that I will meet him,
that he will ask if he was right with eager breath and waiting smile
and reach behind my eyes to scour my memory for the world he left behind,
for the happiness he prophesied from his makeshift plinth.
I fear that those burning eyes will dull with the aroma of burning flesh,
with the din of anguish and horror,
with the cold fingers of disillusion and resignation that pushed themselves into the minds of those still living,
with the happiness that he foretold overshadowed by the horrors our age has cloaked itself in.
I fear that I will have to apologise (or worse, that I will be able to say nothing)
I fear the downturn of that haughty lip
I fear the cracking of marble