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In the center of the mosaic

an octopus smothers a lobster. Floating

sea creatures frame the struggle:

a seabream, a gurnard,

a huge red gaping snapper,

a moray eel, a mullet and a squid

in papal tiara. A kingfisher observes

the scuffle, as human guests

may once have done

on their chaises longues

in the House of Faun,

drinking delicious wines

that go by names like Piedirosso,

Lacryma Christi, Greco

today. They say

that local vineyards bore

one hundred thousand tons

or more in the Pompeian times,

wines enjoyed by the poor

and rich alike

in myriad taverns all around. Crowded

were the alleys of the town –

so testify the figures

found embracing under ash,

coiled alone together, beneath the lava.

In Boston,

 

a friend said on the phone,

you can’t imagine what’s been going on:

the well-off blocks are all intact;

deprived ones

are wiped off the map.

She was thinking of those

dying daily from the virus, those

who had to go to work, those

who lived hand to mouth, those

enabling the privileged white

to stay upright

in silence and tenacity.

What shall be left of cities

when this death is quenched?

By mount Vesuvius we find mansions,

mosaics, statues: signs drenched

in august days

but never earthly sorrows.

Such things are wiped off our maps.

The poor, whom History impacts

as if they never stepped the earth,

leave but an echo in the past,

an excavated scar,

an underbelly puzzle

for the archaeologists.

And come to think of it

 

what would you save indeed?

A pot of clay, a wooden spoon,

a numbered key? Is it not enough

to see the dazzling aquatic fight

or Alexander at Issus

or all the lush erotic scenes in

blood-red banquet murals, to know

how poor the poor of Pompeii were

and how forsaken, when they were

asked to stay behind and guard

the walls, the spine, the very idea

of empty properties?

Have we become like this?

said the voice on the phone

with sirens in the background.

I did not speak.

What could I say?

When History adjudicates

there is no place to flee,

whether you’re armored

in your presidential role, or wear

your wealth as armor: naked

were once the once-slaves, naked

shall the complacent be.