A long sentence: on a chunk of barbarian limestone, hammered bronze and crimson-dyed linen repose in the shape of a centurion, or, rather, the centurion rests behind the molded deceptor that is the Herculian breastplate not glinting under his hunched trunk, a breastplate beaten specifically for him into the general Grecian form worn by a thousand marble statues and as many puppet officers; this one, though more man than toy, sits postured like a marionette whose frame has been fumbled or discarded, or whose strings have been severed altogether, slumping solitary in the alpine sun—slumbering in a peak traverse’s aftermath, perhaps, or withering in battle’s—his helmetless head lacking only laurel to be the stuff of busts, slaloming hair pressed forward even on the sides, curling up templeward, the top-hair valiantly defending glistening forehead corners from ultra-violet—not so for the rest of his face, where relentless sun rays pin the eyelids down, only the left accessible from the sky, actually, but the right following suit, or perhaps having its own reason to be lowered toward the cheek’s first wrinkle, not at the dimple but horizontally across from midnose, the first wrinkle of a fighter foreign to smiles and acquainted with squints, winces, and the windmilling tip of a Tunisian scimitar fourteen years before.