The Little Plaque By the Garden Way

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Callimachus, Epigram 18

Oh, where is Crathis? We,
her Samian girlfriends,
have looked everywhere.
We miss her never-ending
chatter, the gossip, the tales!

Look here! Look there!
Part ways and meet again
at the garden overgrown
where sometimes she
plays hide-and-seek.

 The market stalls?
    No one has seen her.
Nose in a book
     in the scribes’ alley?
(Nay, no syllable of Homer
has ever passed her lips!)
The Temple of Isis?
     Oh, no! Not that!
I looked everywhere.
Just let me catch my breath.
Some boy has got her!
No! No! where is the chatterbox?
Where? Where? Where?

 Look down! O, which
of you can read this?
A little plaque, not stone,
but carved in common wood.

From Crathis, it says.
Read this and know,
I sleep below.
A sudden fever took me.
Come back. Bring flowers.