To Anna
Wind pours into me,
And I pour out,
Threading first through the people
But eventually floating above us—
They with their warm pulsations and I…
Folded and cold
Around a blade yet to rust.
“What have you done to me?”
Anna, please.
What have I done to you?
What have you done to me?
I wasn’t to love.
I wasn’t to trust.
I knew.
Why didn’t you?
You dignified my missteps but only
Too late.
Let Elissa’s city watch her burn
As she watches her fare melt
And as she ever tangles the stars
For the one whose duty faulted hers.
Don’t burn alongside.
You’re little to Carthage
And little to me.
To Sychaeus
By my blood, you were destroyed,
And, by your ethereal word,
I fled before blood could destroy me, too.
Years like Penelope’s were spent with my
Near unfaltering patience
But all in purposeful futility.
Is her Greek there with you?
Can she call me a sister?
My own is dim;
Odysseus’ tapestry seamstress would doubtless prove
Better company.
My memory of you was
My tapestry,
But I don’t anymore merit
The city I built around it.
A Trojan came,
And I loved him the way
I wouldn’t love the throne-yearning others.
He loved me, too.
He loved me.
He loved me.
But he means to leave before light,
And so do I.
Carthage can have my seat.
I don’t imagine Anna will fit it;
She’s hearted like a child.
I’ll soon be next to you if you’ll have me.
To Aeneas
Go, January prince.
Go if you feel more obligation
To leave than to stay,
And pray that your duality
Won’t destroy another as it’s destroyed me.
You were the
Lone, gleaming confidence
That arose in me in the years since Sychaeus
Bleated, in a dream,
His truth to me;
I hadn’t even sisterly faith.
How am I to trust
When the only man of late I’ve trusted
Has meant to deceive me in the night?
Sychaeus…
I loved Sychaeus.
What have you done to my love for Sychaeus?
I should have daggered myself then
When he had gone.
Anna will help me into his world.
She’s a stupid, piteous girl,
But she knows how to lay coins and strike matches.
If I’ve guessed that wrong of her,
Just as well.
I’ll will my spirit to lurk in the waves
‘Neath your ships
And topple you over.
Death bears no bounds
To a woman who’s built her own city.