Portrait of Man
by Michael Scaife

He was held for seventy years
against a bare brick wall
many had strolled past him
without a pause to gaze
without a single utterance
of praise, but still he stared-
rhinestone eyes now jaded,
never weeping from neglect
or the fact that light and time
cleaved cracks into his face,
heaped ash atop his broad
oak frame— that slow change
from nouveau through kitsch
to antiquity, despite decay
his mien remains the same
just as his creator intended.