Learning Latin in Sparta

Agricola, farmer was the first wordand after that came the terms for war.

My parents have chosen two options:the parts of the body, the parts of law.

From the egg to the apples, I holda wolf by the ears. We learn the history

of a dead empire across the sea, notof our place here: this town first

named Columbus, for the manwho discovered this world, before men

met at a general store and chosea new name, Sparta, a bricktown of coal.

We decline, we derive, from cottonand castor beans and the railroad from

St. Louis to Cairo. A runway runs so closeto Pizza Hut, it has a light that strobes.

I’m bad with names of generalsbut hold to stories, like the opal,

now bad luck, once precious in Rome.It is my grandmother’s name. Bonus,

bona, bonum, like her, I trywhiskey alone. An eagle doesn’t eat flies.

Soil folds around the crop rotations.We fit personal endings to verb forms.