When the torch is taken
And the room is dark
The mute wife
Knowing Seneca’s ways
Listens to night
To rumors
All around the house
While her wise
Lord promenades
Within his own temple
Master and censor
Overseeing
His own ways
With his philosophical
sconce
Policing the streets
Of this secret Rome
While the wife
Silent as a sea
Policing nothing
Waits in darkness
For the Night Bird’s
Inscrutable cry.