One elephant has wrapped her dying
Infant in her trunk
Then raising him
Above the mangled sand
Will not relinquish him

To these dismaying men
Slip sandalled in her gore

Trident bearers     hammer men
Javelin     and axemen

For these uneasy predators
The Coliseum hurls
A net ominous and silent

The crowd are on their feet
They are facing down the emperor’s prerogative
Demanding end to this un-Roman show
It is clear who has nobility
Who not –

Remembering a she-wolf suckled Rome
The fierce implacable mother
Primal as the cosmos in us all

She it is who stands in her own blood
Roaring from her depths
“My son     my son”

And in that moment Trajan fell from power