The tour guides’ gestures point toward the past:
Attention! Here sat once shelves stacked with scrolls:
Constructed then, now stands but the façade;
My questions, kept inside, unfurl, unroll.
This Celsus lived long after Paul and friends,
So turn my eyes to linger on the square.
A shop you kept, dark, narrow, without bends,
With loft above: you slept I wonder where.
Aquila, Prisca, were they rich or poor?
Had they a house with sunlit gardens fair?
Or rented flats on dingy upper floors?
Where did then meet the first Way followers?
As on move tourists through the ruins, thus
My mind begs Truth ’bout Life in Ephesus.