Long After Propertius

I once saw in the driveways of Northern Philadelphia

In back of the row houses, on the concrete, a crowd

Of women and children, and a woman with a broom

In her dress and apron, the wind blew from the schoolyard

A strand of fear itself more harrowing than the spectacle

That broke the afternoon calm, like the ocean and the shore,

Water spread far past the vision,

Two dogs stuck together at the anus, barking, running about

In circles, their teeth bare and hungry, and the woman

Battered their flanks, she wanted them apart, begone,

But we all didn’t move, it was the afternoon,

And some of the other women roared, the children clapped,

The dogs danced clumsily, they weren’t used to being so close together

In the midst of so many eyes.

The dogs stood in awe of no one, not even the face

Of death worn women hugging around them, rather they laughed

As one in their lips, all grey coitus played out in the street.

We were their grave, we cradled them against the wind

That charged upon their fur, the row houses looked down,

It had all been seen before, a woman lounging naked in a room

Lightly touching the neck of her lover who will soon depart,

Clothed in the vestments of the living, but death had hours

Before visited, coming far over the ocean, faint imprints

Left upon the sand, it broke the vessel of the man’s soul

And lifted it away, gone was the life, the warmth of the lover’s arms

Now only flesh draped on the bed. She held his cheeks

And rubbed them and prayed that the mouth would only speak,

Let the fates do what they will, but for only a matter of minutes

Forget the hardship and the long suffering and bloody wars of men,

Let the spirit of this man return to its house of sinew and bone,

That the touch that I give this man may be truly received. The lover

Guided by the hand of death breathed again the fragrance of this woman,

They fell in and out of one another, their skin brushed the sheets

And their legs strove for the touch of the other, short time

Lived the while, no place is there time enough, for he died,

Death blew his soul to the wind, but she held an image of him,

One so beautiful that her sleep was made smooth by its presence.

The earth does not wholly swallow a man

Whose image is nourished with remembrance,

Though the ground is wide and far and deep, but a tomb,

Stone, the ash buried within, each are in time forgotten,

The lives of those who know the embers and bone perish

Themselves, for death bids them follow,

And they come, and the grave crushes.

Let the earth give the dogs the ground for their love, it is far

They will have to go to meet, for death shatters lovers’ arms,

Never do they find the other again. Savage was the parting

Of the dogs, the woman swung her broom and yelled shrilly,

The blow threw the dog’s bosom to the road, the tumult

Of women swayed to the wind pass, their skirts hitched up,

The children grabbed hold of the end of the wind,

The hair stood on end, fright hovered over the dogs,

They were apart, their pleasure was overcome, they had loved

A moment ago, merely an image remained of what they had done,

The women stood round. They hinder the works of destiny,

They bind the rhythms with old age and grow tired,

They are voiceless and without strength, women washed with the dust

Of their dead husbands, perished in the strife that goes on all around,

Given up as comely shapes to the warlike men

Of the moment, but for no longer, for desire soon dies

For a woman and death anyway arrives resplendent, its wondrous eyes

Look for a man in his prime of age, how forgetful

Are the women! The dogs move away, the image they carried falls

To the ground and filth is heaped upon it, a funeral mound,

Glad are the processions of the mourning women,

Fire comes forth the earth, may the earth allow it, they pray,

The image burns, the ashes fly away into the wind, but the bones

Lie quiet, the dogs are gone and forgotten, the women

Have new loves to weary, and still the bones.

May the women hold their loves above the dim graves,

May the dogs find one another again in the vast earth,

And may the men in the strength of their arms vanquish death.