A Morning in Athens
The time that it is crawled
in, a burgundy triumph reaching
for the smooth milky thigh, defying
the silk carapace that wraps her
sleeping, chest rises and fades
and the raven hair tickles
at the dawns shadows on the pillows.
The window gazes over golden Athenian
morning bustle, a long black dog
preaches the wrongs of modernity
to passing trucks crammed full
with dirty veg that burp black
and grey nebular into the mystical
Mediterranean heavens, once full of verse.
Over the way I see the marble skeleton
of the Acropolis, stained with all the wind
that three thousand years could muster
echoing the ghost of Pericles,
inventor of the west, father of blood and tears
peering over endless intense eyes
twitching between politics and spilt Greek wine.
Thoughts still braid the charcoal alleys
Infidels tread the Parthenon’s steps
and sleepily her hand holds my hand
invoking me back to bed
chest rises and fades.