The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Charlotte Mandel

Ancient Love

            Greek archaeologists find couple locked in millennia-old hug

Why disturb bones that lay in close embrace

six thousand years? Age twenty when they died,

strong limbs entwined, glow of youth in each face.

Might this have been a double suicide?

Intense passion blocked by society,

hemlock's bitter wine to make her his bride.

Or did some cataclysmic irony

befall them as they kissed—a volcano’s

hiss and roar, as in Pompeii, a fiery

mass, or an earthquake avalanche of loam?

Were they aware of oncoming burial

or orgasmic peace in sudden catacomb?

Did they live their lives in material

comfort—not likely, for they wore no gold.

Diggers uncovered no sartorial

clues, no Neolithic hoes, stone axe, household

chisels, pots. Remains hidden in a cave

suggest secrecy, illicit love, not told

to anyone in the village but saved

within pulsing vessels feeding the heart.

Did they long for afterlife, to engrave

their souls as each other's, love’s martyrs?

Blanket these bones, let them not be parted.