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Etruscans 
The woman, wool-capped, filthy, knelt beside
a man asleep at the curb, so tenderly—
well, what can I say but that I envied
them in my full belly. I've never wrapped
my chest in newspaper or begged for change
with a Styrofoam cup, or slept on the street.
And I welled up with self-pity. I'm safe,
I'm warm, I'm alone. My donor's card reads:
Take the whole body, the body entire,
leave nothing behind for burial. The stone couples
lean against each other, and in the tomb
a queen's dust merges with her king's—the sweet,
the bitter—an apothecary's mixture
to salve the horror of eternity.
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