Who can explain the tears in his eyes, realizing
the historical moment crossing into the present,
mountains behind the orchestra at Epidaurus,

To thrash myself with the knowledge, not
the feeling, that my lover Chris has taken
an Alfred the Great in a very Anglo-Saxon way?

The pain began in the left groin at high tea
in The Cincinnatian Hotel; Mother refused
to consider the possibilities of hernia

Morgan retreats. He retreats into Schubert,
into his journal, into his imagination, his silence.
Away from the personalities, the out-of-order,

The only heir, memory cannot bless any new deed
With the marks of management, transported

Morgan slipped into the Aegean at Monemvasia
for the algae-covered rocks tried to keep him
out. He would be the first in. Mother asked:

Walking could hardly concern him.
At his house, though, this topic would be
spoken of as though it were political.

Roadside grasses are seen
to vary, stem and thistledown:
pale straw or light brown,

If you’d seen
        lightning nets in clear water, 
midnight blue beyond the reefs;

Barrel bombs. Chlorine gas. Tomahawks.
The crowd balks
at the little lute sleeping through the news.