The Last Time I Saw Dido, and: If Not Aeneas

The Last Time I Saw Dido

I had just taken her photograph.Everyone else crowded on the back deck,talking, flirting, admiring the silverof sunset in their drinks. It was stillsummer, all the dresses light and loosein the breeze, and in that warmthI thought for once we might all wantto stay in our bodies, even those of uswho feel ashamed sometimes undressing,who hide ourselves from our own lovers.She is off-center, out of focus, her facetightened as if—but who can know—None of us could know what would happen.It wrecked us, yes, but we were not surprised.Even tragedy had lost its power to shock.This was neither the time nor the placeto say the human heart is unknowable,or that to such a man a beautiful womanis a quaint coastal city—lovely, forgettable—between him and the empire to come.I went inside to help with the dishes.On TV, bad news from a long war.I watched her from the window, standing.She did not like photographs of herself,although we all thought she was beautiful,as autumn is, golden and momentary.Someone said we should build a bonfirenow that it was dark. I went over to herto take her hand, and a fresh wind swelledand bustled her sundress like a sail.

If Not Aeneas

I descended into the underworld againin my dream and there for the umpteenth timestood my father in a plaid button-down shirtand khakis a freshly lit pipe a wreath of smokearound him whiffs of aftershave it was nothinglike death or suppose I should say it was nothinglike life with all its waste and junk the cellsrigged with their own end flesh irradiateddissected and stitched instead he was himselfmore himself maybe than he ever was in lifeI wanted to speak to him and say come backcome back but my voice was drowning in itselfI knew he could not come with me not withoutbeing changed I must have known this evenin my sleep in our dreams when we descendinto ourselves and beyond ourselves we whodescend and return too have been changedAeneas returned to found Rome althoughall he wanted was to hold his father againI have founded nothing I have found nothingI am reaching out to grasp it in my arms