Desire

Naked, the Emperor gazes up at the giraffe
               wavering on crane-legs after

               days in the dark, waiting.

The people, witness, have never seen

               such a creature, they know
               what is to come.

Five-score lions Commodus disemboweled

               in one day, they starved

               and fury in chains—the music

of their dying confused with the calliope crowd

               gut sick and thrilled.

               And, once, the son of Aurelius

ran laps around the arena, the fiddlehead
               neck of the just-slaughtered

               ostrich brandished
before the crowd, a child’s toy. But they haven’t

               seen a giraffe before—somehow

               kept alive ‘cross sea,

fed leaves and fruit, battered against the almost
               ark’s ribs. And, soon,

               the beautiful king will spear

the towering belly, organs

               rushing to empty to the sand.

               Or, maybe, he’ll begin by hacking

one long leg, the giraffe screaming, bucking

               as it falls, his neck

               making a slow, sick curve,

               the braincase shattering

on the sand. Or maybe
               a man in the crowd will decide

               he’s seen enough
even before the killing has begun, and walk out

               into the alleys of Rome

               where someone scrubs the steps

of a house not her own. Commodus, of course,

               tired of slaughtering

               these innocents out of Africa

starved for his delight. Sometimes he had the city scoured

               for men without feet—lepers,

               a boy whose leg has been crushed

by a wagon, veterans’ of the Danube

               campaigns—and like kindling

               bound them to each other

so he could hack them apart with his father’s

               sword. The soul is a vortex,
               Aurelius wrote, and the entire body

prone to decay. All things of the body are as a river

               and the things of

               the soul as a dream.

What was it dad said, the king wonders,

               scratching his balls, watching

               the giraffe’s body waver

against the sky, about how we should welcome death,

               about the end of desire

               and its emptiness? (Of course,

I only told you that story so I could tell you this one—

“Desire” first appeared in AGNI 80 (2014).