no
    she said, biting the cigarette on her lip
it doesn’t matter any more, not at all
(her cigarette about to fall)
her hair, curled
                           lazing on her cheek
tips brown with chlorine
messed in bed for an unsleeping week
                           her dark-green earrings
                                        (or were they blue)
her eyes glazed over, remembering
                       herself, an unashamed fool:
                            the flutter of eyes, hiding
traces of our low, muttered nothings.

Ian Wong is an avid fan of dead languages—the deader the better. And, like the observant scientist in zombie films, he notices how modern academia animates these ancient, stumbling creatures using 'reconstructed Classical pronunciation' and books thicker than an industrial sledgehammer. Dissatisfied with the state of modern approaches to ancient language and literature, he hopes to resurrect the ancients without actually having to contend with rotting limbs and the danger of having your brain eaten. He is aiming to cross this modern-day Rubicon by employing the power of contemporary idiomatic poetry. As a British school-teacher might say, 'Way-nee, wee-dee, wee-kee.'

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