Past Her Prime

by Brett Rutherford

    Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, v, 204

Long in the tooth for love you are.
Those men have worn you out,
Timo, your timbers split
by the oar-beat of passion.
Hunched now you walk,
like a slack-wind yard-arm.

Parts of you flap
     alarmingly,
those famous breasts
now sagging low.
Wave-tossed, your belly
warps and wrinkles.

This ship has borne
too many passengers —
for shame, old courtesan,
give it up now. Instead
of perfume, bilge-water’s scent
precedes you. Retire now.
Invest your hard-earned coins
in something decent. Be gone
before your creaking bones collapse
and salvagers make off
with what is left of you.

I hear you plan to take
just one more lover on.
Unhappy he, unless he wants
to make love to his own
demise, riding you out
across Acheron, a skeleton
astride a coffin-galley.