Lucie Brock-Broido

Herculaneum

No one is bored, just barbaric
Anymore. Ash admixed with rain, which cooled

The air. How much longer will this beauty
                              Of yours last?

As if even the idea of the city
Has been lost for twenty centuries.

Don't quail like this; go
Gracefully instead. 

                              Eros enters
								
The room like a lesser god stopped still
In the middle of a bath of oil & umbrage in

The exquisite hour.

                              No one is
Exquisite anymore. The river is so small now

It will be hard to drown
In it. And still this world's a pretty one.

                              What world.

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Lucie Brock-Broido is the author of two previous collections of poetry, A Hunger and The Master Letters. A third book, Trouble in Mind, will be out in January 2004. She is Director of Poetry in the School of the Arts at Columbia University. contents | next