We Come Because the Romans Came, Joseph
You are a scene, an obscene staggering,
your legion balls cold & wanting
a beach or bayou, a hot place
to lay bare their brains.
The wheeze of a lung, your tobacco
mitigates the map I must be.
You explicate the states of me,
declare yourself a global citizen.
I’m the tourist. You live and die a traveler.
We’re in a hotel room, anyway.
We come because Romans came.
I blame Augustine for my lost temples,
my mothers’ heathen wailing, but quietly,
so as not to disrupt your room service.
Pasta. You declare my history spurious,
an impolite guest facing a limited menu.
This again, you sigh, outraged by fact.
I open my mouth but am too American.
Ever the echo of war and hostility leaks,
red as your sauce. You wanted Alfredo.
***
Dena Rash Guzman is the author of Life Cycle—Poems (Dog On A Chain Press, 2013.) A chapbook of poems in forthcoming from Reprobate/Gobshite Quarterly Books in summer 2015. She lives in Oregon.
