Catastrophe at Cyrene

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Callimachus, Epigram 22

Some days the sun
should refrain from rising;
some nights the moon
should turn its face in shame.

At morn, we filed into
the graveyard. Ashes
of Melanippus we consigned
into the tomb intended
for his parents. At dusk,
the grieving Basilo died
of self-murder. The pyre
that had burned her brother
would take another too
before its embers had faded.

At home, proud Aristippus
staggered with double woe —
first Malenippus,
     and now Basilo! —
a childless father now.

All of Cyrene wept
and its citizens shuddered
to pass his desolated house.