headless skeletons were unearthed
from the Roman empire 2,000 years ago.
How amazed they would have been
to see themselves re-assembled on tables
with their age and occupation revealed,
gladiators dead in a foreign field,
one even hailing from the Middle East.
Where is your brutal violence now
as your bones lie in neon silence?
They slept unmolested for all this time,
I picture muscular bodies beheaded
dying in bloody ways to entertain
yet now only pitiful bones remain.