Dirt Coverlets Wrap the Naked Bodies
Hidden from the Orthodox gold, the boys in shorts and tanks.
The curious July heat, a stranger, my nose peeling from an hour in the sun.
I wore philandering gold
under the salt of the Ionian,
beneath the medieval tower,
surrounded by plastic beach toys
when I accepted my loneliness.
Maybe it was the village wine that made me laugh.
Back in Athens, a spliff and a plastic black onyx ring,
hardened like the clay earth my grandparents worked for.
A warm beer on the rooftop, a stolen cigarette on a foot-wide apartment,
I swept the floor,
the color never changed. Greek semen on my belly.
I was lime wash, the low overhang in the Athenian suburb, something meant to stain.
Twice.
