His flesh, pale as the marble
Fashioned into the destiny of his days,
Is on display in the show window
Of a nearby antiques store on
The Alameda de Hércules.
As for his soul, if he had one,
No one is sure what merchant
Might now possess it.
Two centuries after Christ,
Someone did make sure that a block
Of purest stone render him immortal,
Like the flight of birds
Or the ebb and flow of the tides.

I invited him to dine with me,
To share lamb,
And his story and the stories
Of those who were his companions.
He was reticent and noticeably uncomfortable
But the wine brought to his memory
The fire of other nights,
And he inquired as to the names
Of my wife and children and of other kin.
In a voice that sounded most like
The pastor’s song to his flock,
He spoke of the fire that leveled someone’s heart,
Someone very dear to him
In the port of Hadrian’s city.

I realized that the place was not accurate, but that his story was
When, as we stood before the sprawling river,
He spoke to me of its waters
As the greatest ever seen by a Roman.
I knew then that the birthmark
Gracing his breast
Was but a trace left by the years spent under the silt.

I feared for my life,
So distant until that night;
For just as one river covered his heart,
So another likely covers
Marble stone in the city of the dead.

I then placed two coins
On that ruin
And walked into the night,
Again alone, knowing now with certainty
About myself and about many others,
We who are not even torsos of the ancient past.