The Gold Watch

Recompense for the immigrant

The Old Courthouse Dayton, Ohio. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

I like to think it happened at the Old Courthouse,

though more likely it was in a beige or green government room.

Nevertheless, in my mind’s eye,

my egg-shaped grandfather stands with the mayor

at the top of the Old Courthouse steps.

So diminutive he’s nearly invisible,

flanked by the white Ionic columns

which like a whale’s baleen filtered out the good Daytonians from the bad.

The premier Greek revival courthouse in America,

plopped down on the flats at Third and Main,

a limestone facsimile of Athens’ Temple of Hephaestus.

Nearby, on its own acropolis, shouldering the Italianate Art Institute aside,

the Orthodox Church’s teal dome, like a big blue eye, oversees the city,

the church my grandfather was too poor to join.

Amid these echoes of ancient glory, the mayor shakes Grandpa’s hand and

thanks him for fifty years of service to the City of Dayton

and has no idea of the tack-sharp mind hiding behind