Scene One: The Unveiling of Vesuvius

one glimpses old stone
& exsanguinated pigeon guano
[fresco: a miniature Ophanim] mottled
salt-cured meat
in clay pots

we draw Sarno--of Once Was--
with perfume oil of abalone
bone remnants
tablatures in dust--
where dimness agglutinates
with ruinous sediment---
other Pompeii-ash
gleaming mistless

in the molten slit