Night Torment

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Asclepiades, The Greek Anthology, v, 189

A fool’s watch
on one of the year’s
longest nights, endless,
in winter weather, too!

I’m drenched with rain.
There’s no reward
for pacing back and forth
before a door
that never opens — hers.

Morning comes soon.
The mocking Pleaides,
warm in the arms
of one another,
are halfway up
from the horizon,
humming on through
the holes in the clouds. 

I know she is in there,
the sly deceiver.
Someone already came
and lies entwined
with her soft limbs.

What would I do,
anyway, if I saw
him leaving? Accost,
or slink away, or,
worst of all, knock
at her door and beg
my turn?

I know I am mad.
This is not love;
no honor here
for Aphrodite, not
the kind of affection
the gods bless. Lust,
simple and searing,
a hot arrow,
drives me on,
amid the winter chill,
tormenting fire.

An Unholy Trio

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Asclepiades, The Greek Anthology, v, 161

Euphro, Thais
and Boidion, three hags
who once were courtesans
at Diomede’s tavern,
who formerly took on,
like a twenty-oared transport,
the desperate arriving captains,
have cast ashore now
three ruined men, stripped
to their sandals and worse off
than shipwrecked sailors.

Poor Agis,
poor Cleophon,
poor Antagoras:
the rocks of divorce
await them, and all
because those creatures
posed as respectable
women and lured them
to home and hearth.

Back at their old trade,
corsairs of Aphrodite,
they shriek like Sirens.