Ablative of Place from Which

Charles Grosel

Laudabam, Laudabas, Laudabat.

Each syllable rolled

off Daniel’s tongue like a ball bearing

slapping the tiled floor, a litany

more pleasing than a priest’s.

Laudabamus, Laudabatis, Laudabant.

He was in it for love not prizes:

software engineer turned graduate

instructor in Classics.

When things got dull he turned

to naughty Catullus. He’d recite the Latin,

then the book’s translation,

then his own, giggling at the lines

he made contemporary.

Mentulla is pitchforked by the Muses,

in Daniel’s teasing voice was rendered

The Muses poked him in the ass.

We had taken the class

for different reasons—

graduate students, freshmen, science

majors looking for breadth

requirements—but none of us

for fun. That was Daniel’s gift.

Near the end of the term,

the classroom’s heat

went on and stayed on,

as it always did

when we didn’t need it anymore.

The back row fanned themselves

with their myths. Sweatshirts came off.

The room smelled

like a vacuum cleaner bag.

Even the student unshaven

and bookless in the corner

took off his jacket of scraped

black leather. The tee shirt gripped

his biceps like centurions’ arm bands.

Slow getting started that day,

talk turned to the next quarter.

Keep going, Daniel cried,

eyes on the new centurion.

You can do it. All of you.

Someone called out,

What are you teaching next term?

He looked at his notes, then

turned to the board and wrote

Ablatives of Place From Which.

I won’t be here, he said.

Pens thumped desks,

almost as one. Notebooks shut.

We took it personally, this

betrayal, the way any group does

when their guide turns back at

the threshold.

C’mon, he said to the

silent rebuke. What?

He rolled up his sleeves,

until then kept tightly sweatered.

His glasses roosted on his nose

like chicken wire, his face

gone narrow as a man’s pelvis.

Had we missed the metamorphosis?

Or had it come in an instant,

as in the myths he assigned us

for translation?

The melanoma crusted his arms

like continents in relief.

I’ll do Latin on my own, he said.

No, I will. His grin curved stiff

as the leather watchband

loose on his arm.