For Martial

Arcadia, the Ionian Sea
Don't do it for me.
Tumbling wastrel Rome
Is my spiritual home.

Harps and heroes, high-walled Troy
I've tried to enjoy,
But find, to my mind,
That Martial's the kind

Of poet I like best—
A tousle haired pest
At table, tracing love notes 
In wine for a girl that dotes

On a dumpy, balding senator,
The gouty inheritor
Of large Campanian estates,
And waiting stricken 

At night, while wind caresses
The garden's cypresses,
For a look at the window
Or an oil lamp's luring glow.

This little song is for him.
Perhaps, in some dim
Forgotten region under or over the earth,
He's listening.