Slowly, Rome glows
and while alight
we knock on our neighbours' doors
easing them all into breezeways
away from the danger.
In tenements
two-ply wide
they've berated the
edicts, this
flayed waste
of time ticking
next-door where one whore
reads her theses
in horoscopes;
next-door to her come more
edicts, feverish scholars
reading into these two books:
Hydrolistics, and Fire-
hydrant Maintenance and
Operation, greyed
by fire tides, sounds
of the whore's horoscope
exegesis.
We've no need for these
scholars hurry hurry hurried
fire licks and quick smiles
through the two-
ply dry-
wall.
-r
