LIBERATRICES

By

J. Ransel Romine IV

Jan Toorop

And they went to thank the New England trees and their sandled feet grew dewy

And they went to the waterfall where they found the women of gens Junia, and together they smeared blood on their faces

And they drank wine and ate puls and talked of Bacchus and their own villa cults

And they waded and lay down under Virgo and wrote friendly polemics against Cicero

And the calendar read MMDCCLXX ad urbe condita 

And they went to pick the juniper of Turkey and let their faces crack in the sun

And they went to Carthage and found the women of clan Barca, and together they smeared honey on their faces and drank their fill of sheep’s milk 

And they lay down to be tied, and fester in the sun like embroiled beehives

But they could not face noble suicide, and they ran off under Punic curses

And fled from Carthage to Utica to lay down and weep

And chew on the stems of roses so they could again taste blood

And the calendar read DLI ad urbe condita

About the author

J. Ransel Romine IV is an undergraduate at Temple University, studying History and Spanish. They enjoy modernism, critical theory, Beethoven, and peanut butter sandwiches. They worked as an editor at Danse Macabre. They currently serve as the fiction editor of Bombus Press