Edison Jennings: The Cats of Rome

(George W. Bush/Silvio Berlusconi, Second Gulf War Summit, Rome, June 4, 2004)

The cats of Rome sleep, feed, and breed

among the tumbled travertine, and slip,

tails high, across the flag draped avenues.

Ignoring pomp, alert to circumstance,

they cruise cafes for crumbs or prowl

the Pantheon.

                        Because the ages blaze

and fade, the cats ignore the ranks

of flags and fleets of long black cars.

At the axis of the empire, they curl

round Trajan’s column, indifferent

to a fault, at home in a falling world.

.

For Felicia Mitchell

Copyright 2021 Edison Jennings. First published in Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival Chapbook, 2015. Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.

Edison Jennings lives in the southwestern corner of Virginia and works as a Head Start bus driver. He served thirteen years active duty in the U.S. Navy. After separation from the Navy, he completed his education and began teaching and writing. His poetry collections include Intentional Fallacies (Broadstone, 2021).