128 AD

I come from the mud, with cohorts
up to my eyes in sublunary shite
I’ve razed forests, repaved and rerouted roads,
rebuilt the Imperial Border. The places I’ve seen,

pal, soft as porridge the soil there: you drown
in sludge, you dine on swill, your billet’s a one-
arsed village of mud slapped into bricks and dried…
Not that the bloody sun ever shines there –

it’s turned its miserable face away
hidden in a slate-grey crying fit of mist and
more rain, vicious, pissing, remorseless
than you could ever believe – but

the crack was good as well. Plenty of blondes,
Batavian whores. Who sort of bleat and moo
as you screw them. As for their grasping,
hard-and-fast fingers, who cares – I had the cash.

And then the crossing, worked on the wall
hand of a god who keeps us safe and warm.
The job is done. I stayed on: I live in clover
here in the glow of this stone hand’s palm

that reddens as I write. Sunset
casts on these grasslands what look like
old hills, the clouds above are new,
the shades of night close in. I wait.