Todd Hearon

R T

Roman Room

Someday our buried life will come to this:
a shaft of sunlight touching the Etruscan
surfaces, the basin still intact
as if awaiting hands. How many

centuries sequestered is an expert's guess,
you tell me. I admire the tiles
some craftsman spiraled in the ceiling's dome
detailing Neptune's beard. Or someone's.

What will they say of us, who have no home
(we like to say) but one another? When they pry
our hearts apart and excavate the sum,
is that the place we'll lie? Where the words lie?

The Singers

They are not angels

though they have the hollow look

of beings bred on ether. There’ s an air

of cool removal from your life, the hawk’ s

indifference to the hare’ s terror.

You see it in their palms, raised casually

against the fresco’ s surface, as to glass

of submarine or spacecraft, and you see

it in their eyes, oracular, that let you pass

alone to unknown agony. The song