If Antony had won,
there would be no month of August,
the month I met you at your desk
drawing in Latin class.
I had just gone back to school
and you were quite the pretty freshman;
Catullus’s own Lesbia
could not compete with you.
And if Antony had won,
I wouldn’t hate the month of August.
We all might speak Egyptian
and I think that’s not a bad thing,
‘cause then I wouldn’t understand
the note you left behind.
Benjamin C. Krause’s work is forthcoming in several journals right now, including Tipton Poetry Journal, Counterexample Poetics, and Leaf Garden Magazine. In addition to writing, he edits and publishes the literary blog The Weekly Poet and is working on a number of other projects.