Evan Jones

Eight poems

Carinus

Why did Carinus believe
that his brother’s death would elevate him
in Rome or anywhere? He is fiddling
some tribune’s young wife
when it comes to him that Numerian’s legions,
under Diocletian, are broken and retreating.
Later, in victory, when he can’t even think
of her, her husband will remind him that
the Empire is not the emperor.

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