drafted 8/12/2023, posted February 24, 2025
For S.
we honor you where fire eats the walls
where dusk makes brass filagree gleam
tall statues like anchors for a moon
that stretches light across a new forum
Romanum planted in the desert’s belly
beneath tall palms and taller mountains
we drink this gold of apples we watch
streetlights unfurl bioluminescent ferns
to garland a funeral feast mouths full
of ancient things legumes and lamb
cheese and milk honey to feed the hunger
I first knew when I descended stone steps
beneath the hill into an Etruscan tomb
the low door guarded by dolphins
a set of inner rooms arranged to echo
at a smaller scale the houses of the living
presided over by a laughing couple
who still for thousands of years lean gently
into each other sharing a cup with smiling faces
as they recline on the banquet couch
that is their shared sarcophagus in the neon
electric light they keep us company
as we speak your name once more before
summer turns and rustles back to sleep