Poetry

My Herculaneum

January 1, 2010

Jan 1, 2010

When I arrived, I thought I knew how to live.
I saw my future as clearly as new frescoes
On stone. What I didn’t have, I made do without—

Or invented: the trompe l’oeil mosaic in the summer

Triclinium for a real garden. The songs of birds

From the nymphaeum’s painted trees. Long expert

At knowing the world through the words of others,

I thought there would be time to live. Before her

Diagnosis, my feeling of fortune was as ostentatious

As patrician villas, tempting disaster. And like the other

Citizens of Vesuvian towns, I feared disaster would find us

But could not bring myself to pack and leave.

Solace comes seldom—it’s as rare as a preserved section

Of fresco, framed in rough wood by the archaeologists

To safeguard it still. That’s how my insides look now—

A ruined expanse of smooth stone, graffitied with residue

Of memory, caught under glass, visible if the light is right

And there’s no glare—fragmented, constant, red.

January 01, 2010