Am I considered lucky to be born into the purple?
I am the daughter of an emperor in Constantinople.
Actually, I am a prisoner in anguish and pain.
I am forbidden to marry during my father’s reign.
All in the court hail the Emperor Constantine.
As a father, he has been cruel and mean.
Many have called me the most beautiful of our time.
However, a woman in her late forties is past her prime.
My father has been emperor since Uncle Basil’s death.
He is now quite near to taking his last breath.
As a result, he has placed his seal on an edict.
I am to marry Romanus Argyros, the city’s prefect.
This man Romanus had been married previously.
My father made him divorce in order to marry me.
I have no feelings for Romanus at all.
The man catching my fancy is named Michael.
Romanus can only be an emperor of the worst kind.
A way out of this problem is what I must find.
Empress Zoe of the Byzantine Empire lived from 950 to 1022 AD
Grandma Curcio
You look out at me
From a yellow, cracked photograph
Even my mother
Doesn't remember your first name
She cannot be faulted
You were dead
Long before she married your son
Who were you, really?
Are you hidden in
The hard lines etched
In your grim, granite, grandma face?
Did those eyes pierce the soul
Of your alcoholic husband
And cause him to bleed?
Is that why he terrorized
You and your children?
I can only know you
Through my father's few words
"She was a wonderful, sweet woman"
I can only know you
Through his actions as a teenager
When he beat his father - perhaps as badly
As grandpa had beaten you all:
"If you ever touch Ma again, I'll kill you"
My father did not have to
Carry out his threat
Grandma Curcio
You lived on
In the man my father became
And now that he is gone
You live on in me
Who will gaze upon
My yellow cracked photograph?
Will they know my name
And wonder who I was?
And who will they be?
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