Follow me; together we will
walk and discuss what manner of love
atones for a thousand indiscretions.
Youthfully and flushed she said
in a voice of bells: Forgive me for being
late; I am young and in love.
I looked at the way the roots of trees
held firmly, caressingly to earth and thought:
I know how that feels, to draw water from someone,
to hold that someone together with my fingers.
I want to burst into a silky scarlet flame of words,
curling and crackling like a matador’s cape.
My delight is full tonight; it runneth over
like the toro’s winevessel veins.
Forgive me for my faithlessness, for my quickness to despair. Whenever you bring light, I wish I’d prayed harder in the darkness. Hold tight, sweet one, and be my hope forever. Don’t let me forget your constancy, your changelessness, your faithfulness and love. Be with me always.
If I wind my words around you like arms,
like walls of strongholds or
security blankets,
will you,
sweet glory of harvests and
ripples on water,
stay?
Or go – venturesome brave explorer that you are.
And I will say: “The world is large,
and will make you glad,
and will terrify you,
and will enrich you beyond all my heart has to offer,
but dear one, the world spins quickly sometimes,
so when you’re dizzy,
I will hold you fast and settle you,
eyes fixed on yours, heart to heart -
I’ll let your rushing pulse feel mine
and slow, and slow, to match it;
till steadily you breathe
and sleep
and love. And when you wake
at dawn, at newborn dawn,
who spreads curious fingers over
the curves of land,
I will trace you with my eyes, my hands,
drink deeply of you, then
send you out again.”
Mikalos is riding his trike into Arie.
Mikalos is grinning with glee,
and speaking Greek to Arie,
and wondering why this girl doesn’t know Greek.
It’s so easy a five-year-old can speak it!
Ronny is floating on his back in blue ocean;
Christ is not taking off his hat;
Jackie is squealing and worried at the water;
Jane is sending photos to her husband back home.
And this feels like heaven, and it’s you, Theodoros,
your grace and love have met us here.
You are indeed doros theou, and
my face is sticky from fig ice cream and
my stomach bulges from the food you gave us when we
straggled into your backyard, funny American beggars.
Your family lounges on patio chairs with us smiling,
indulgent and enjoying the merciful day.
We are strangers and Theodoros is a gift of God,
a gift of God is Theodoros of the wide girth, of the wide smile.
I miss you, Dmitri.
The Roma children are selling flowers,
and the lamps are all lit.
My beer shines in the light.
My ink flows on napkins,
and you are deferential, sad,
and wide-eyed.
Dmitri gives olive oil,
Dmitri takes it away.
“Efkaristo,” I love you,
and I want to stay forever
here, in the noise of the Plaka.
I do not even resent the
insincere smiles of other men,
the “American?
Get a drink with me later?”,
the tourists;
because you, Dmitri,
need to know that you, Dmitri,
are loved;
that your bald, nodding head
and long, hesitating fingers
as you proffer olive oil
do not go unnoticed;
that your olive oil tastes like grace to me,
and efkaristo, I love you,
and I want to stay.
It is morning and it is grey,
as mornings have tended to be lately.
I am ancient. Violin strings run through me
instead of veins, lacing me together.
The greatest thing I ever learned from you
was that love is never unconditional.
The floors creak. I walk them.
At the extreme point of the curve in my side is a thorn.
If I’m wearing my skin, you can’t see it;
it’s innocuous enough, then.
But as soon as I start shedding layers of me,
peeling white silk then red leather away,
you can see it – there.
When I breathe, my abdomen swells around it,
throbbing;
When I move, my muscles clench around it,
tensing.
Here, I am undressed: all that’s left is bone and heart.
Here, laced between the capillaries: the thorn,
in all its curving, black, fang-like deadly elegance.
The nose of a Bentley, the shine of a stiletto heel.
Arched tenuously like an offhand remark,
then sweeping down to a point like an unwavering gaze
or a loaded gun.
I am laid bare, unskinned, unmuscled, unvitalled:
the air rushes by – if I could move, I would wince,
would shudder, would curl to hide myself,
shrivelling and cold, from the elements.
But there is only blood and bone,
and thorn.
