Getting What We Want

In Pompeii I tried

to take photos without any

people in them,

wishing I could walk there alone

in the rutted stone streets,

sit alone in the doorway

of an empty house,

look towards Vesuvius

pretending I didn't know anything,

to see what that would be like.

The warm Italian wind

washed through the columned courtyards

in perfect patterns of coolness

-they knew how to build, those Romans-

but the tourists kept walking

into my pictures, coming through

all the beautiful archways without

my permission. I had half a mind

to leave, let them all stay there

by the thousands, gawking at the

pornographic murals in the brothel,

never noticing the wisp of smoke

over the mountain or the barely perceptible

tremors of the earth under

their shuffling feet.

But see now-

here in this photo

I am finally alone

in the corner bar,

wondering where everyone is,

my arm turning to stone

even as I lift my glass,