Homage to Sextus Propertius — Erin Burke’s Version

Those who desire without fingering
are of the noble, conscientious Romans, right?
So many unlike divisions – it is
the huge Hypanis Veneto who says to Eridano –
I cannot consider love alone ample nutrition.
Cynthia, the beauty, in her distance.
Give her until the end, and she takes 
always the shortest step away from it.
With her own eyes, does she not see me?
The total of the ego infinite in its mutant longing
when you extinguish all for love’s temper. 
There is never a long solution to the aching nocturne,
callous in its grave.
Try, you can review the present as a wet flower
and nothing more than the arms of love:
all elements translate to and serve her
blind in their resistance:
Cynthia to be first, Cynthia to be last.

— Erin Burke