DISCORPORATE

After Cavafy died that part of his soul
Responsible for the rejected poems
Didn't leave with the rest of him.
Some mornings bleak-eyed tourists
See it, dressed in impeccable evening clothes,
Drilling alongside soldiers who fell
During the Siege of Alexandria
Evenings it spends quietly with the ghost
Of Ptolemy Auletes, whose equerry it’s become.
Occasionally it picks up a stick,
Dips it in water and writes a new poem.