HOW OFTEN DO YOU THINK ABOUT ROME?

How often do I climb inside
its seven-chambered heart
rimmed in marble? How often
do I claim the wolf, after all, is most
stone-like of any animal? In Rome,
the outside is always inside the room—
portico, esplanade, veranda, piazza.
Underneath cobblestone, an older stone,
a trickle, mosaic, and bones.
Cypress brush sweeping stone
temples clean.

When I saw the bodies at Pompeii
in plaster, I understood the mood.
   No new water in the river,
     no city but Rome smaller, bigger.
Oil shimmer on the Tiber,
slaves stacking stone for a new temple,
and it is such a nice day to eat outdoors.

Inside me there are two wolves
who both founded Rome.
Inside Rome there is an older Rome
and me, there, too.
It wasn’t the bodies that survived,
but the holes they made in the ash
the plaster filled.
I took a fat artichoke dripping oil
between my teeth and bit
down on soft,
then stone.

The answer is always, if it matters.
Stone screw twisting inside soft wood.

Emma Hyche is a poet and essayist from Appalachia whose work appears or is forthcoming in Apartment, Peach, Denver Quarterly, Sugar House Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Picnic in the Abattoir was released in 2021 by dancing girl press. She currently serves as a Poetry Editor for The Rumpus. She lives and writes in Chicago, Illinois with her partner and a cat named Dario Argento.