I chased you
through valleys
and fir-crested gorges,
as if you brought something sweet
into the air.
Remember
that hot,
Mycenaean sun?
I would dance nevertheless,
lily and clover slapping my ankles,
as you sang
and sweat
on the lyre.
Through high summer
we reaped our own harvest,
words falling off your strings
like honey,
fat and dripping.
If I was hungry,
you fed me
a single piece of want,
and watched the saliva
pool under my tongue.
I don’t blame
the snake in the grass
at all.
I think of that harp,
your fingers closing my eyes
and tipping my hair back
in a shudder:
the ankle,
the breast,
the tail.
Mouths must connect somewhere,
I suppose,
when hunger is stronger
than poison.
[…]
Tamer,
the waterfall gushes and falls silent
as a three-headed dog sleeps at your feet,
and gods who have seen trees cut
for your first ancestor’s cradle
weep.
You lure in the deer,
you charm the tortoise,
you even seduce
the ibis and the nymphs.
I am quiet
in the dark,
my fingers balanced on wet limestone,
watching you
entice anything with a heart
as tears fall
from your eyes.
When you leave
with the shadow of your guilt
trailing behind you
like an ending,
I do not follow.
I listen for a different music.
I do not think you have heard it:
the song the rock sings
as she tempers herself,
the melody of an ocean
on the other side of the earth,
drowning the singing
of the lyre.
I listen,
and I do not dance.