for my husband
Strange holidays. You and I,
I contending with my secret selves.
I place on you whatever I hope for and what I fear.
I try you out and defy you
with what in my mind is unconfessed,
with what I think, plan and remember.
On Corfu, with friends as usual.
Explorations, fortresses, fireworks.
Chit-chat with hors d’oeuvres and wine.
The motorbike pushing thirty uphill
and I mechanically pressed against you.
We take a boat to the island.
Temporarily escaped - a secret bay.
Pirates’ creek perhaps.
Paradise. Your cell phone is ringing.
Do real people call
where lovers do not fit,
or fear, mine and yours?
In Mólyvos, Eftaliótis’ house
counts the years. One-hundred and fifty, if you must.
How was it in the past? Same old sorrows.
A full moon above the castle, and tonight,
we said, the night is like a game
thought up by a four year-old kid.
End of August. How do you abandon the magic
and comfort of these holidays?
The first we bore together.
Now we return to current slavery,
full of the future and full of the past.
For our dreams, expectation has begun.
