[excavated at a villa in the outskirts of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii: Guardian here]

excavated from the
dark depths fled:

escaping Vesuvius
was no mean feat

though it might on
the soul of this master

running away with his
barefoot slave who is

petrified just the same,
fleeing stooped from

all those compressions
in his life then and now,

joined, though not by a
final comforting hand,

still under the other’s
feet, both alike dead