Sinatra: The Concert at Pompeii, 1991

Six hours until showtime & they’ve organized

A private excursion for the Chairman & Frank Jr., who tonight

Will conduct the orchestra—the Teatro Grande,

Where lately the amphitheater floor has been minutely sifted

To locate the DNA of gladiators—blood of Gauls,

Sasanians, Nubians. It’s the Diamond Jubilee Tour,

Day 67. “Come Fly With Me” will begin the set.

Frank is weary, puffy face, bags beneath the eyes—

Still legendarily blue. Shades on, a fuchsia sport shirt.

& a phalanx of golf carts flanked by carbinieri Vespas,

Chauffeur him about the Forum & Via di Nola.

At the House of the Tragic Poet, Frank Jr. reaches out

To steady the Voice, who grumbles about the shoes

Crafted for him in Milan last week—still too tight. & in the Temple

Of Isis, he pauses on a bench for a little rest, an Orangina

Handed him by a red-haired forensic anthropologist

In a denim skirt, unused to being addressed as Sugar.

“World on a String” is on every set list of the Tour.

“My Way” the encore, always. The more generous reviewers

Have remarked that the storied voice

Is not precisely what it used to be. The tour guides save

The Garden of the Fugitives for last. Its pumice-mantled

Audience of the dead. They explain the Fiorelli Method—

Locate the petrified outline of what once

Was a body. Pour liquid plaster through a funnel

In a hole you’ve made—in what you think was the ear

Or side. This fills the cavities created

By decomposing flesh. & thus you have a perfect

Simulacrum of a victim at the instant of death,

As the gasses finally do their work,

& the ash continues its despoiling rain. The details

Are exquisite: sandal, birthmark, the fold of a toga.

Label it artistry. Or recipe. Label it trophy. Call it Bread & Circus

& “Mack The Knife,” its tempo slowed to crawl.

Ohhhh thee shark haasss pearl-yyy teeettthhh deeaaar . . .

But here, offstage, beyond the reach of nimble mastery,

The thirteen supine figures reach the shores of Styx

Together in perpetuity. By the wall of a kitchen garden,

Three family groups, fleeing the lava rain, joined by accident,

That disaster film cliché: two farm families & a merchant’s.

A servant, bag stuffed with grain & seven pomegranates—

He’s the first to fall. Then the two small boys,

Face down, holding hands. A husband, arms outstretched

To shield his wife, who even as stone appears

To tremble. Frank circles the scene, then circles again.

The celebrated Merchant, his face adorning all the guidebooks,

The one sitting upright, right arm fused to a mound of earth.

He is trying to rise. For millennia he is trying to rise.