I. Bitterness
“You have found waves, but Rome does not exist.
Even if you travel beyond water,
Past islands (the blood of the very Earth),
The foreign trees will not give you the death
You crave, they will render all the shadows
Of your nightmares and make you true as rain.
If you think two thousand miles will erase
My words- I tell you, they will leave you caged.
I shall nearly crush you, my beloved,
But a serpent from fragmented stories
Will rise up from the sea in your defense
(The goal of my caress never realized)…”
I reflect my scribbled curses innumerable times
As in my mourning I seek madness contained in grape vines.
At our kiss goodbye the dread river stopped,
Then carried mortals like the desperate rocks
That are shaped into naught by waterfalls.
Should I forsake your name just because you bear me hatred,
Should I despise the birds for flying higher than the stars?
With a friend, I sit. We drink together.
He asks what I intend to do. I shrug.
“I do not love her enough to kill her.
What can I do? What can be done?” He laughs.
“Give her a breath, your Shade will end herself.
Come, have yet another drink, drown sorrow.”
II. Elegy
This is not the sun or the moon: this is infinite, it is everything.
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