Epic
By Ange Mlinko
It’s you I’d like to see Greece again with
You I’d like to take to bed of cyclamen
You know I nurse a certain myth
about myself that I descend
de tribus d’origine asiatique
and am part Thracian or Macedonian
cleaving to a Hellenic mystique
after centuries’ migration inland
a full moon rising over the Acropolis
I can repeat the scene this time à deux
as then I had no one to kiss
slicing halloumi amid the hullabaloo
of a rooftop taverna in July
The doors that opened to lovers
pulled like tree roots from darkness I
close upon us now like book covers
The alcove in which we embrace
is cool with brilliant tile
and weirded by a dove’s note chase
of ouzo with Uzi junta-style
History makes its noise we duck
till it passes Love we think is our due
Not we think like the epoch
the unchosen thing we’re wedded to
