After Ovid
Places hurt. You will grieve if you insist
On re-visiting the scene of your first kiss,
Or the room where you lay together,
Lanterns winking on the lagoon, music
From the bar below, and laughter.
Breathe on them and half-dead embers glow;
Quiet longing becomes a raging blaze
When passion’s stirred by sweet remembrances:
Why tell of the half-dark room, the broken lamp,
Your clothes and hers scattered on the floor,
Her poised above you smiling, your name on her lips?
The King of Euboea revenged himself
By tempting the invaders to the rocks
With lights that seemed to promise safety—
And so they died. Let happy memories be
Your Scylla and your Charybdis—the sailors
Skirt around them, trembling, lest the edges
Tear their flimsy boats apart and haul
The men, lamenting, down into the dark.
Alexander Gaul works in academic administration in a university in the South of Ireland. He is currently working on a project that combines translations of Roman elegies and love lyrics into a novel in verse.