MY EPIGRAM

I wrote an epigram in Latin

which was a kind of

progress for me given

my student problems

with that language

perhaps if

Hannibal had won

at Zama, beat the shit

out of (my hero) Scipio Africanus

then I would have

sailed through the courses

at undergraduate level

become emeritus Professor

in Cartheginian studies

down in Cape Town, the

world's great

Universal City

and this poem

would have been written

in perfect Punic.

years from now

your children's children will

have to translate, memorize,

recite it

for poetic punishment,

or would that be "justice"?