by Potemkin, who had built
a host of clumsy, misbegotten
shells of buildings, edged in gilt,
where the Empress was to pass
as the Dnieper rolled along,
with pasteboard walls, the thinnest glass,
for the admiration of her throng,
and then passed by, and left it sitting,
waiting but to fall to dust,
a strange fate in a way befitting:
the best lies are the ones we trust.
