Suspicions

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Callimachus, Epigram 45

Don’t say I wasn’t warned,
old friend Menexenus.
No sooner had I said
I was done with doting,
along comes Pan, the sneaky one,
on a mission from Dionysius
to stir inside my ashes
     a hidden fire.

I thought I was beyond
distractions. A wall
was I, yet undermined
by hidden streams beneath.
So now I tremble, head
to foot, with dread,
that this unworthy lad,
a rent-boy if ever I saw one,
a purse-snatcher or worse,

dread that he slips in
where my heart is empty,
and something like love
floods in to overwhelm me.

Friends should rescue friends
who totter at the edge of folly.