Work Text:
CICERO
Good night then, Casca: this disturbed sky
Is not to walk in.
CASCA
Farewell, Cicero.
The storming night
Hoods heads and eyes alike.
The walls have ears, but thunder
Can mask any noise:
Leather-clad feet, two pairs, three
Sets of heartbeats thrumming
In the buzzing air.
Leather will stiffen and spoil if
You allow cold rain
To seep into the seams.
Run fast.
That one says
That he’s seen a lion,
Prowling in the streets, but
Haven’t they all?
Run fast.
—And your friend has
long grown used
to sleepless nights, so
Be silent as a ghost.
Don’t be caught
With a guilty hand,
With a clenched fist.
Because in the end
No one knows what hides beneath
Encircling fingers; nor does anyone know
Whether a human heart beats
Heavy with fervent blood within
Every man’s ribcage.
The contents of this hand are emptied
Onto rain-chilled concrete.
Brutus, thou sleep'st: awake.
A darting flame is lit beyond
The hooded eyes of the window.
(Tonight, this flame can, perhaps be called
The only one in all the wet
That is Rome.)
Fingers, belonging to another man,
Close around the evidence:
Shall Rome, et cetera.
Then, he finds six pairs of feet,
Six heartbeats doubly tapping at his front door.
Speak, strike, redress.
In the dim light
They hatch from their dark night-cocoons:
Six soaked skins are thrown
Haphazardly upon the mosaiced floors.
But unlike leather, those won’t spoil
Even if the patterns and faces
Are suffocated and concealed.
(Night hoods the heads of those
With polished stone for flesh, too:
Animals, men, gods.)
They speak in a murmuring, insistent buzz.
Whatever he holds
Easily squeezes into the spaces
Between his fingers and into his pores.
Then, his fist conceals nothing at all.
It is over quickly,
Just as soon as the flame
Drowns in the dwindling night.
One by one they pick up
Their shed skins, and
Fly out the front door.
They’ve forgotten their shadows at his home.
Brutus, thou sleep'st: awake, and see thyself…!
Alone, he makes his way
Back to his study.
There is something unimportant
That must be returned to its place.
(He won’t have another taper lit.
The moon’s pale gleam is sufficient.)
—See thyself?
He does, when his hands
Blindly swipe a little too far on the desk.
Suddenly, like a deluge
(A hand, splayed out)
A pouch of denarii spills onto the floor.
When he bends to pick up the first coin,
He sees, then, in the silvery moonlight—
Facing him, that renowned
Junius Brutus of the past.
(Therefore, facing down, he knows,
Must be Libertas.)