AN AUGUSTAN BUST

I am Juba The Second,

king of Mauretania.

Its vast savannahs

as well as Anthony’s

daughter Cleopatra Selene

were mine by decree.

They called my father

The Great Furious.

The day Numidia fell,

he told his truest slave

to swing the mighty sword

against him.

I was five –

By Caesar’s escort,

I was taken

all the way to   

stony Rome, where I

grew up to chart our losses

to the Greeks and Romans.

Africa was taken down

in my geography of words

and hugged in three

large volumes, lost

to your late mourning. –

With a Christian era dawning,

friends, what shall I say?