Cesar awakens with the crow of the roosters,
and he leans over a basin,
and he drenches his temples,
and he curses the Roman summer.
He sees his mocking reflection in the troubled water.
He barely recognizes himself.
He doesn't realize how tired he is.
From another room
comes the muffled whimper of a woman.
Cesar approaches.
Spread eagled over the bronze bed,
Calpurnia is sleeping.
Just as the previous night,
as every other night
she is having a bad dream.
Cesar remembers
the stillness of her gaze in the afternoon,
after they laid together,
when she begged him not to leave the house this morning
(I've had a bad omen, his wife said)
and smiles.
He loves her,
and he pities her.
He places his hand over that warm, milky skin.
Calpurnia has stopped moving.
Cesar walks away quietly,
without looking back.
He wears a spotless purple robe,
and some worn out sandals
that used to know Spain.
He gets down to his study
and takes breakfast standing.
His secretary, a sparse bearded Greek,
is waiting for him with a quill in his hand.
Cesar would like to handle
the excruciating minutiae
that come along with ruling an empire,
but a crucible of memories
has run aground in his mind
since he last saw that stranger
looking at him from the basin,
and won't let go:
The mosaics of Jupiter's temple,
The face of a crucified pirate,
The weeping of the daughters of the Gauls,
The roar of the Rubicon he left behind,
The hollow eye sockets in Pompey's head,
The Nile under the light of the stars.
Suddenly,
his loneliness overwhelms him
he doubts of everything,
and wonders if so much blood,
so much iron,
so much fire,
were really worth his while,
if it wouldn't have been better
to end his days as a feast for the crows
within the dust of Pharsalia.
That weakness lasts but a moment.
He then remembers Calpurnia's fears
and smiles for a second time.
He goes out to the street.
The morning is catching fire.
He starts walking towards the Roman forum.