Exile, A Definition

Riding in the swan boat of my youth, I’m
suddenly entering the tunnel of
middle age where the billboards—shall we say—
targeted marketing—have changed. Every
ad is for wrinkle cream and undereye
masks. As if somehow the Ad Execs think
that is what I don’t want to lose: cat calls,

the preying swoop of eyes that wanted to
swallow me up. Cut me down into bite-
size chunks. No, freaks. These days it's Ovid I
can’t stop thinking about. How he was 50—
in his prime—when he pissed off some Roman
emperor who exiled him to Tomis.

He hated it. Kept writing letters home
to Rome, begging to be called for, to be
folded back in. Stuck on that island in
the Black Sea, no one was trying to sell
Ovid beauty products. Exile from the
Latin exul meaning banish. Oh, how
I wish to be banished.

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Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s fourth collection of poems, West : Fire : Archive, was published by The Center for Literary Publishing in 2021. Her biographies include Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020) and Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb (University of California Press, 2024). Dunkle teaches at Napa Valley College, UC Davis and Dominican University and is the Poetry and Translation Director of the Napa Valley Writers' Conference.