are you collecting the old counts of how they slaughtered your son and his power-hungry heart, twenty three knives to the torso, the killing blow delivered by a beloved friend? or are those the scrolls that you wish dust would settle over forever, relics and reliefs of everything you see behind your closed eyelids. a politicianβs mother must be all the more clever; her son will not be going into battle to die with honor but rather with deceit. give her-- you-- a laurel wreath, the irony of the goddess nike standing golden over the tomb of your son: emperor, caesar. mother of summer, of boiling july, are you not the sun? are you not the constellations freckling burnt pale skin? are you not the fiercest and brightest of warriors, quietly, without warning?
for the mother of julius caesar, the woman who raised him while his father was away; for the grandmother of augustus, who marked the change of roman history.