Derek Mong was born in Portland, OR and lives in Louisville, KY where he holds the 2008-2010 Axton Poetry Fellowship at the University of Louisville. His poetry, prose, and translations have appeared in the Kenyon Review, Crazyhorse, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. He appeared on A River & Sound Review (#20), recorded live on Orcas Island. 

Mong says: "'Thumbprint' is the only poem I've ever written in using isoverbal prosody. 'Lines from the Emperor Hadrian and the Poet P. Annius Florus' follows the poetic exchange between a poet, historian, and rhetorician and Rome's third emperor in the Nervan-Antonian Dynasty."

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Lines from the Emperor Hadrian and the Poet P. Annius Florus

by Derek Mong

                                2^nd century A.D.

Florus

To be Caesar, no, I’d rather not—

lurking round the boars and Brits

or lugging bricks towards some border.

I’ll let others suffer hoarfrost.

Hadrian

Borysthenes, Caesar’s steed,

could ford streams or swamps

while the boars’ tusks passed by

like turnstiles. Speed saved

his flanks, sent foam from

tooth to tail till rider and reins

sprung, side-scorched, out

of the saddle. Still, when his limbs

no longer leapt to battle 

he chose a day to die. Quiet now—

He sleeps beneath this field.       

Florus

O Bacchus, wine’s cause and connoisseur, breathe

some life into my vines or re-seed these fields. If you’d

just coax out the liquor’s flow, I could age a case

away from prying eyes. I’m keen to do my drinking solo.

Hadrian

To be Florus, well, I’d rather not—

sulking round the seedy bars and brothels,

glued to the afternoon’s buffet.

Who wants to be a mosquito’s supper?