Table, 2
After Milosz
An empty table, an empty tavern,
that image haunts her departure.
Everything else is cheap silverware, finger-marked
wine stems. Like an overburdened ghost, she moves
among broken plates in the direction of the port.
She doubts that stacked tablecloths will suffice.
Some dances are already piles of ash on cobblestone.
And after she leaves, distance is resurrected
in the body of a god, broken on this altar,
because even beauty cannot hide the loss
of song, or this rough table’s heavy wood.
Excavation
That June the marble quarry slept.
The pine trees made no sound
except their sighs, their nymph breath
diluted by a reef. Archilochus burned
fragments of words in the evening bonfire,
and the goat sacrificed himself.
Animals do not mind such burdens.
It was months after that the monks
learned what the goddess already knew:
the island is raw, garlanded with wild woods.
Without marble, without a slab to rest on,
we couldn't ram belly to belly, thigh to thigh.
We hoped the marble would open again,
create a fissure for two bodies. And so,
we brought up the nets, tossed the bad fish
to the gulls, tried to summon a god.
It was hard to get his attention. We dragged
the boats to the quarry. The ancient poets
had explained: we were lost. The goats made room
for us to sleep. The sea stayed
quiet, embraced its marble.
