Two poems inspired by objects recovered from the Phoenician ship in the Archaeological Museum at Marsala:

EPIGRAM

NAUTAE ORBICULUS
Ad telam assidens mater sub vespere sola,
   Omnino lacrimis flet tunicamque rigat,
Fila secans gemitu, circum assurgentibus umbris,
   Quare liquisti me sine luce tua?

THE SAILOR’S BUTTON
A mother sitting alone at her loom as evening falls,
   weeps and thoroughly drenches the tunic with her tears,
with a groan cutting the threads, as the shadows rise all around,
   “Why have you left me without your light?”

METRICAL HAIKU

CANNABIS
(Spoken by the sailor son as a prayer before the first Battle of Drepanum, in which the Phoenician boat was sunk)

Veni vapore
Somnifer advenias,
Bis Canna bisque.

Come with the smoke
Bringer of Sleep please come,
Twice and twice again, Cannabis.