The Emperor Nero After the Assassination of His Mother Agrippina

^{(59 C.E., Bay of Baiae)}

Her soul whistles out
until Nero seals the lips

pushes her lids shut
His office fills with letters

of praise   Her corpse laid
on a dining couch     then set

on fire—gold fabric whips
sparks around the thinning flesh

In the pyre Nero sees what will return
each night     curling from her open tomb

into his bed—what the magi
cannot exorcise—Agrippina

with astrologers who foretell
her death   and Agrippina’s reply:

Let him kill me
as long as he reigns

One ancient historian
writes that Nero was hounded

by his mother’s ghost and by the whips
and blazing torches of the Furies

So perhaps Nero learned
death does not snuff power

It can manifest itself
in innumerable shapes

Give me great power     even brief
Even if death is the cost