I CURSE YOU, APIUS

Te Apii tuumque caput sanguine

hoc consecro.  Inscription on plinth

of Giacomo de Maria’s sculpture

To protect his daughter’s honour from Apius,

Virginius has stabbed her.

The girl hangs limp in his arms.

About to die,

she lolls on his breastplate,

her senses numb, a touch

indifferent to her fate

while his embrace is as tender

as the knife is cold.

The marble doesn’t bleed.

Lisa, on the other hand, was not a marble girl.

A blonde from Sandbach Services,

she twice visited our geriatric writers’ group,

Roscoe Ward, Central Library, three years ago -

then back to Sandbach and the endless pots of tea

for urinating motorists.

                                    At the end of one literary afternoon

she followed us into the Walker Gallery café,

and we stood a  while beneath the marble group.

‘Doesn’t look very moribund,’ I drawled.

And Julie: ‘Let’s try it out.  I’ll be’ –

she squinted – ‘Virginia, you Virginius,’

and she had me hold her against my chest

as she lolled, indifferent to her fate,

my embrace as tender as a marble knife.