marquis de lafayette

the boy puts his left hand around the right boot of the marquis de lafayette. he is careful not to catch his fingers in the spur just above the heel. his right hand grips the man's left boot. the boy leans back a bit, looks the whole situation over and shifts his left hand past the blade of a long sword so he's holding tight to the right ankle of the marquis with both hands. in one smooth movement he swings himself up onto the ledge and there he is standing right next to a man who was on the wild side of two revolutions. the boy leans away to look up at the marquis, who stands almost as tall as his horse, even with his hat off. the horse is a jokester, nibbling at the groom holding his reins. they are flatter in the background than the marquis and the boy scoots himself over past the flank of the horse and looks again at the man.

it is impossible to tell what the boy knows. that this man once owned slaves but recognized that a real democracy couldn't abide that sort of ugliness. that he was a pal of our very first president and used that connection to push for abolition of slavery when we were just a baby country. that he was born french but fought here as a general and didn't even ask for money. nobody paid him to help bring this revolution around or think so much about democracy and freedom and all that.

but it is clear the boy knows something. he arranges himself in the tableau a few ways, finally settling on a pose like the marquis himself, hand on hip, sword tipped to the ground. he looks like a little boy watching his daddy shave. he moves his hand twice to get it just right on his hip, hovers his empty sword hand around until something clicks and he knows his imaginary sword tip is resting just in front of his foot.

the bronze is slippery wet from a week of rain but nobody tells him to get down off that statue before he breaks his neck. he would not hear them anyway. he shifts the weight of the sword in his hand and surveys from his vantage point a harbor the rest of us can't even see.