ITALY

chneenan@tin.it

After Horace Odes 1.4

Then one morning winter’s nip is gone and you can
smell spring. Down at the lake fishermen
drag out bright varnished boats. Herds are hammering
at their corral gates. Farmers get up from their

fireplace and look out at fields greening under frost. By
then Love for a new moon leads the dance
of debutantes of the slender legs. And heavy, gammy,
Vulcan hobbles off to his smithy.

Now you’ll wear a daisy chain or pour early blossom
on your hair or touch the soft giving earth
or shadowed in the lee-side of a hazel copse talk of
spring lambs, of innocence, of the birth

of the new world. Still, Death’s pale complexion falls 
with equal force over the poor man’s pallor
and the rich woman’s make-up. So, David, do not stretch
things out too long. Both our twilights have begun

and another night. In the house of the living dead who
cares who I dance with, who I save my best wines
for, whose long fingers tangle into mine, whether that
young boy’s or this or one or other virgin love.

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