When we see the life-size pornographic ice sculptures

melting in the Sun outside the Unitarian Church

and the next day only small chunks of ice remain

and they're gone by dark

We ask--are we so different?

Aren't we flesh sculptures that melt away to nothing

but it takes a few more years

Or instead it's faster like Hiroshima

victims vaporized in a second

or burned alive in a minute?

The pornographic ice sculptures are beautiful

with sunlight streaming through them

highlighting the curves and expressions

and the genitals are so realistic

and you can see through them

and glory in the rainbow patterns

they cast in all directions

But we, like they,

and the most voluptuous porno stars,

are as good as gone

as good as gone in 100 years.

Who would guess this senile old man who doesn't know

who he is or his family and friends are

and who shits in his new adult diapers

right after the shit-filled diapers he was wearing

have been removed and he was cleaned up down there

and the new ones put on

Once was a beatific angelic youth

who thousands jacked off

watching on film jack off

in the privacy of their homes?

In 200 million years

we, they, and the porno they were so erotic in

have vanished as if we and they never existed

as if we and they never existed at all

and the same with all who played with themselves looking at it.

True, melting ice sculptures appeal to us more

than a rotten and rotting corpse

swarming with blue and green flies and white maggots

each of which has a soul.

True, from Eternity's overview

the planets are no different than snowflakes

the Sun will eventually expand

and swallow before you know it

and after that no one will remain

to know they existed or what happened

and so the planets, sad to report,

are as good as gone

as good as gone already.

Still, honor the ice sculptures in the open air

for all to see in front of the Church,

Honor the pornographic ice sculptures

Honoring human love-making in every position

and the sunlight passing through them

and the crowds passing by them in the sunlight and pausing

watching the sunlight pass through them

and the rainbow patterns cast around them,

Honor the drops that fall as they melt

and the wet sidewalk where

a few earthworms wriggle

on the moist cement

in the late afternoon

early spring Sun.

Former Poet Laureate of Milwaukee, Antler recently appeared in the

anthologies Poets Against the War; In the Spirit of T'ao Ch'ien;

Collecting Life: Poems on Objects Known and Imagined; Solace In So Many

Words; People Are Starting to Talk About You: New Gay Poetry, and Working

Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams. This March he was

chosen as "Artist of the Year" by the Milwaukee Arts Board. In November he

and his pal Jeff Poniewaz will be featured at the Wisconsin Fellowship of

Poets' annual fall conference.  Among his recent readings was one he gave

at Texas A&M.