The Tomb of the Scipios
for James Nalle Boyd
They sleep fitfully, we hope,
in their tufa bedrooms, so old-fashioned
they lie down instead of ascending
in proper plumes of smoke.
What are they
up to, the living ones, in their Greekified gardens,
their scroll-crammed libraries? Who are those
bookworms Aemilianus hangs with?
The best porphyry sarcophagus couldn’t keep
the slimy suck-ups out.
And we—we go south, we come back,
and there they are, staring at us,
as we slog toward our insulae, our smoky tabernae,
so dusty are we that even that blowhard Ennius
can’t squall us clean.
O, Appia, vilest of beasts
to the traveled foot, take us safely home.
We know our eyes should never leave
your hard, black stones. 