Fort Saint-Jean

Fort Saint-Jean stands at the end of the Vieux-Port.

Inside the fort there are gardens and a tower.

Inside the tower is a tight spiral of a staircase

which gives onto a roof with views 

of where you just were.

Inside the staircase there’s a rope which runs

all the way to the top. From the oils 

and pressing of thousands of hands the rope

is now like iron. That’s not poetic license.

You, too, would mistake the hemp for metal.

I don’t know which way to take the image:

Are we all soft things, made sturdy and secure

by those who’ve turned to us in need?

Or are we all soft things, made hard and stiff

against the passage through our lives

of one more set of thoughtlessly grasping hands?

I recommend the gardens if you have a chance to go.

Preferably at a time when there aren’t so many tourists.

That is to say: when has the answer never been ‘both’?