DEBORA GREGER
To Dido Later
[ think of your thirsty ashes
washed at last in wine.
The torch is hungry and can't be blamed.
[ remember my ship in fl ames.
The pitch and the wax caught first.
Then the flame climbed the mast like an old hand.
And then the thunder came,
and in the heavy rain the wood grew soft,
almost like flesh, until the ship swam
through the fire as if she lived.
Why cou ldn 't you have turned
into a ship at the end?
I remember odd things.
A drinking bowl they gave me,
engraved with another city.
A pyre in flames in the brass.
A bare tree. Some goats on the rocks
and
ofT
to the side
A woman slashing her throat,
no wound for a woman to give herself.
The night has learned
to keep its loneliness
to
itself.
Only grief is left making a bed
for resentful care.
I would be the housewife
if [ could, the one standing in the doorway
of the lower world .
The bees are hard at their tasks
like good Carthaginians,
building the walls you were so proud of.
The flower like a drop of blood
is blooming again by the roadside.
