When the roads became overgrown, there was no more transit; when there was no more transit, there was no more trade; when there was no more trade, there was no common tongue. And the bones in Minicius the eunuch’s hand hurt. It was night and the candles were nearly melted and the inkwell was empty and I said to young Anastasio, “Go to the cellar. Take four branches of hawthorn. Rive each with a hatchet in the water. Then leave them at the bank.”

Brother Minicius sulked. There was no unguent for his hand.

We stripped the branches of their bark, barefoot in the shallows, habits hiked to our knees. My ankle sundered a shoal of guppies. Brother Felix smiled and there was daylight behind him. We soaked the bark till the Sabbath went. We boiled the water till it thickened black. We added the dregs of the communion wine and prayed to our Holy Mother to forgive us. In goatskin bags it hung from a clothesline in the summer heat. When it dried, we added salt and iron and over the fire we stirred. Brother Anthemius said it smelled of sulfur and he wrinkled his face to sneeze. We snickered and the Prior glared at us and we went mum with thin smiles.

Then the bones in Brother Minicius’s hand did not hurt and there was no need of candles for God was generous and light flooded our chamber. With pumice he scraped the palimpsest of pagan doctrine. He brought quill to vellum with much pressure and the corner of his “A” was blotted. But he wrote with fluency and discretion over the faded scrawl; They looked like little bird tracks, those letters, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Not even his fluvial hand nor meanings therewith could divert me. My heart took in their sounds. My lips formed their shapes alone in my bed. And Deus shook the benighted trees.

Ganymede

Ganymede mounted the dung beetle.

Iridescent towards heaven they rose,

Flitting splay-wings: blue-black, green-gold

In bracing night-breeze the wincing

Stars shone on the boy who dreamed of bruised grapes.

He dreamed of their leaves and dreamed of their pulp.

There would be grapes in heaven unlike

The grapes on earth, its nectar sloshing in flagons,

Kraters filled to the brim, Among

filigreed thrones of solid white-gold,

ensconced in gathering ether.

The Lupercal

Romulus, Remus, suckle in the dark

Lupercal, teething mother she-wolf’s

Tumescent dug, tiny hands groping rough

Blood-matted fur, belly cold in the dark

Lupercal, the walls perspire deep

Into the craggy teeth of the dank,

Humid grotto, fingers seek in the dark

A blood-clotted bulb, and quietly weep

Alone. While others wring a final jet

Of warm sour milk from a spent teat,

He sobs, knowing the world will not have

Him. A child of morning will come forth,

A child of noise, of battle, of glory, of death.

The other, supine, will dream in a shallow grave.

He Touches a Hand to the Column

-- What does ambrosia taste of?

-- It tastes of breeze.

He touches a hand to the column,

No prints...no breath...alabaster.

The sage taking glass steps,

Puce robe rustling,

Rustling resolved

In jasmine-laced

Tintinnabulations…

-- Watch, the ether spreads.

Carry in the stillness,

The scent of chimes…

-- The last mortal to enter these realms,

Quaffed the lotus elixir...most indecorously.

Enveloping…

Noxious…

-- His face! I remember!

Darkness ahead.

Berserker

Lone berserker…a fortnight dead…
Stiff in a bed of dry leaves…
Shocks of red tendril bursting

From lineaments of terror…
Aghast, you fathom, mouthful of dirt,
No tongue in your head.

A fortnight ago,
You scarfed pig knuckle and bashed a tankard
On the head of an old peasant;

Your vassals roared with laughter.

He died the next day,
You brandished cudgel and ate swine offal,
Your eyes smoldered in battle…
Lopping stalks of flesh…

Thrashing armored onslaughts…

Choking on the fumes of battle,

You winced at the taste of sulfur,

Your voice was drowned in the din.

A fortnight ago,
Your nostrils flared hairs fierce and crimson,
But your voice was soft and weak.
A gash splayed panic across your face,
But your hands were free from callous.

That night, a man cowered in your shadow

And your throat grew tight,

And you trembled, eyes quavered,

And he was severed clean.

A fortnight ago, a virgin you ravished,

Her neck dithered in your hold,

Eyes glazed in the moonlight,

She screeched and scratched and begged.

And with her last wheezing breaths

She made one final wheezing plea.

And weak as she was, she couldn’t grip

Not even the dirt or speak but a word.

You crushed her head with a rock.

Lone berserker, a fortnight dead,

Carrion fraught with vermin.

In your last moments you fathomed

All that you feared: The far-flung stars…

The yawning night…The swarthy man

Who strummed ancient chords on

An ancient instrument on an unknown

Island in the waning dusk.

He you spared…He was your end.

You lived in revelry,

You reveled in daybreak,

And when day broke, you swilled mead,

And when you swilled mead,

You spilled blood, And now your body,

Drained of its humors, makes of its bones

A world for the vermin.

They will not go hungry.