I followed her down the Spanish Steps
her pink dress billowing in the wind
she was Hellenism in motion
the tireless grace of youth

in the plaza I dashed into Keats' house
a mausoleum of dead Romantic poets
and their ever-living verse death masks
decorated the shelves as Byron and Shelley

rose in shadow a lair of brotherhood
rife with premature deaths and ill-lived lives
I peered into Keats' life mask looked up
and in the doorway languid Nike in pink

I handed her a new volume of Keats' odes
she smiled hollowly set the book aside
and searched for wings to flee human contact
missing a head her ancestor guards the Louvre