XI. Vespa Vestals

In the garden of the Virgins, that is,

The garden of the House of the Vestals

(Your sweater draped across your shoulders

As the narrow chill of the evening

Began to ribbon the Forum), you walked

With your head down, silent, a little amused,

But silent. Whatever other exists

In the daily mystery of service & denial

I doubt humor plays a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of of a part;

Yet there you were,.at the ancient doorsill

Of the ruins of the House-thinking

Whatever it was that you were thinking-the lush,

Complicated vines of spring already obscuring

The bare stones of the sweeps around us.

Yet for a certain number of I know, a little humor is all

That allows our frail dignity to fall

So far from silence, & service, or fortune....

To begin however again as if, each time individual loved,

One loved as a virgin, helplessly, if faithlessly

Until the life that was one time long ago imagined

Begins laughing again, silently, in the ruins.

Copyright World verse Incorporated Mar/Apr 1998

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