A. Z. Foreman

Camões 

They say he roared in Ceuta, lost an eye:
a hole the sultry Indies couldn't fill.
Lisbon's white spires turned his prayers awry.
His oars pulled debt, disease and ink and will.

He penned the straits of gods and kings in chains.
Sea drowned his girl but not his manuscript.
Love limped through taverns, muttering her refrains,
and fame arrived too late, half-torn, and whipped.

The statue stands. The marble pigeons doze.
Some schoolchild mouths a line no one believes.
His bones, misfiled, sleep under tile and rose.
A storm eats Lisbon. Somewhere, nothing grieves.

You quote him in the bar and feel absurd.
The ocean answers softly, word for word.

A. Z. Foreman is a linguist, poet, short story author and/or translator pursuing a doctorate at the Ohio State University. His work has been featured in the Threepenny Review, Rattle,  ANMLY, Poet Lore and elsewhere including two people’s tattoos but not yet the Starfleet Academy Quarterly or Tattooine Monthly. He writes from the edge of thought between sleep and waking. He wants to pet your dog.