I hold these truths (What you give)
I hold these truths I cannot take
wrapped or boxed between my palms
I wear them like a teenager in her first
virgin wool dress from Sears-Roebuck
the flicker of our bodies in a spritz
of twilight
suspense in the heat of busy
merlot lips and meandering tongues
subject to freesia aphrodisia
I clutch to my breast
they have no color but without them I slip
from the pages of a back issue of Life
we sculpt with our bodies until all
movement casts us raw and dry and set
refined in the noir recesses of damp earth
What you give we launch at nightfall
freed from its shell like flying
fish shooting into the sky
Had I the pleasure
to adorn you with myrtle
in Cretan olive groves,
I would first have to
scorn Athenian warning;
dive into your eyes the Blue
Caves of Zakynthos,
appease Ailuros
with drunkenness;
immerse my fingers in
your oxblood tendrils,
offer Aphrodite blood
of white dove for salt;
brush my thumb across
your dewy cheek,
eat fallen arils of
Sappho's pomegranate;
sip from the brim of your
coveted Romeiko,
sip from Attic red - figure kylix
of crimson anemone tea--
O goddess, that I would!
That I would!
