It’s three hours since we parted.
Sitting by an open window,
too lazy to do any work,
I listen to all the usual morning noises
(the drone of a lawn mower
in some far, leafed suburb,
a fond young couple downstairs
folding sheets, tabulating furniture,
an old termagant in the flat opposite,
 snuffling round her son’s bedroom
in search of – truffles? – confessions? –
matricide manuals under his mattress?),
listen to every tale this doomed tenement
has to tell, a symphony of cisterns
performed on authentic instruments.

Then I think of you,
your sweet anxious voice
as we parted on the street,
the warmth of your forearm
while Nero and Poppea
fucked without conviction
above the orchestra pit,
your strident breathing
piping through the house,
Claudio’s Vespro heard before dawn.

And then it occurs to me
that my body remains as you blessed it, these truant hands undeflected,
that held you, incited,
operas ago, in antiquity.