Love in Ancient Rome

She left her husband

For a gladiator

I was worried

I was worried about her

Every day

She’d traipse down

To the arena

And I knew something was up

She said it was just a ‘new hobby’

But anybody could see

She was playing with fire

My husband warned her husband

But he said she was just interested

In the folly

Of human cruelty

‘Regardless of that,’ my husband said,

‘You need to keep a closer eye

On your wife’

He didn’t listen

And now where is he?

Left without a wife

That’s the third woman this month

Who helped a gladiator escape

His servitude

So she could entertain some notion

Of a lustful dalliance

We’re running out of married women

And gladiators

And my husband and I

Have been given her children

Because when her husband found out

What she’d done

He promptly threw himself

Into the nearest fire pit

Tragedy

Tragedy all-around

I’m not upset to have the children, mind you

It’s not their fault

Their father was an idiot

And their mother was a harlot

And a household can always use

A few more hands

To scrub the walls

I just wish people

Would temper their passions

In favor of

Simpler things

We are not meant

To live like the gods

Brazen and satisfied

Refilled so often

By unclaimed fires

We are meant

To never know

Fulfillment

For if we did

--What then?

This woman

This woman whose children

I am now raising

Is somewhere right now

Regretting what she’s done

That I know for certain

And why?
And for what?

Was she not...entertained?

As she was?

And now does she find

A better circumstance?

Resting in those brawny arms

Kissing those supple lips

Feeling the weight

Of all that muscle

And hunger

Pressed up against her

She’s beginning to realize

She made a terrible mistake

A sort of life

Makes you a sort of person

Who she was before

May not have been exciting

But it was true to expectation

Tailored to her class

And sex

Now she is above herself

Far past her story

And where it should have ended

She will try many fruits

But she will find

That all taste sour

In the way that unfamiliar food

Always does

Picked my strange hands

And fed to you

As though you are a queen

When really

You are barely a subject

When I dream

I dream

Of being someone

Other than myself

But then I watch

As the children

Of my fallen neighbor

Wash their feet

In the beggar’s fountain

Outside my home

And I remember who I am

And why I am who I am

And I go back inside

To my husband

Not a gladiator

Just a man

And what more

Should I

Expect?