from Blackwater Quartet, selection 81

Fired-Earth Figures in Red Relief

(Pompeii, AD 79)

A shaky, freehand shoreline mocks the notion

of perimeters— leggy, Italianate,

the slip-stack tiles and melting oleander

pooling to a bas-relief of broken gods.

Lizards cling to Mars, the alphanumerics

of his dedication lost to shrugging earth,

volcanic ash and knock-kneed, dazed verticals:

underfoot, smithereens of fractal tempus.

The scenery is goat trails, twisting cart ruts.

The foreground figures sprawl in fixed positions

of tableaux heat and vacuum, everyday life

a held breath, sculpted lastly fallen, spellbound.

Their memories survive these exhumations,

scale models of imagined cities dreaming,

neither sleeping nor awake, patient within

the asphyxia of blue skies swollen red.

In the die trace of streets, a neatness nowhere

in geography accepts time’s tourists, here—

these others, as we, but different now, cast

cold in gypsum— once fizzing, festival things.

No bold poses, mimicking the immortals:

instead, on a day much like any other,

a field hand, pausing on the slopes, sees sparrows

burst and burn, before the shaking loose of stars.