Tuesday, August 23, 2022

He Comes Around

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Callimachus, Epigram 46

After his friends warned him,
“Callimachus is after you.
Don’t give him anything.
     Leave town, give no one
a forwarding address.”

 And so Menecrates, who said,
“I am not like that. Look not
that way upon my features,”
left town on June 20th. Then on
the holiday, what was it? the 10th
of the month following,
my door, unknocked, flew open.

The ox came to the plow
without a summons.
Well, well. A bow
to Hermes, the god
of sudden inspiration,
well done! Just twenty days
between the wish
and the arrival.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment