another roman road

Another Roman Road

My neighbour’s garden wall is made of stones from
the disused roman road that had stopped going
anywhere for ages; smooth stones walked over by
mules and sandaled feet. No one here used to bother
about some old road, but no longer, the heritage people
want their stones back, as do the tourist board,
who’s trying to hard attract quality vacationers, inland,
away from the coast; there is more to Portugal than she,
being Spain’s little sister, aping her big brother.
When the stones have been put back, a story can be spun
about a road that never really went to Rome, but to
a quarry behind the hill, a hole filled with thorny bushes,
snakes and femurs of my neighbour’s ancestors, worked
to death as slaves by men with Romanesque noses.