Rome

The heat burns the city open. As well 

as the time. Reading on the Spanish Steps 

I lose myself in the love of a sick English poet,

that I allow to die in my nearby hotel,

hacking, spitting autumn, still scorching

his lips by the stanzas of a lusty muse.

But in the night, on the whispering Mount Mario,

the city at my feet and her breath rising, still

rising higher, I tenderly re-dream, eroding marble,

the child full of future of another ode,

another now. Time after time I stroke

the cool, hired back. Sealing it off, in vain.