In the New York Public Library
We discovered
A room of dark reverence
An exhibit devoted to Percy Bysshe Shelley

Glass-encased books and
Ozymandias in his own hand
A lock of his hair
A bit of bone, skull perhaps

Now only the atoms of the air
And glass separated me from that
Which once held the fiery brain

Poring over these relics
I recalled a class from college
We were studying Shelley’s poem, Mutability
When I woke up to the words
It was sudden
I saw them as though a lucifer
Had been struck inside my own head

How much has changed
Since then

-Bront Davis