two sun-kissed breasts
in crushing warm waves
a year ago I wouldn’t have
thought it possible
what is it
that opens us
to the wind
and closes us
from shame
poor harmonies
but together they made
sort of a band
guitar and a thing
you could call a drum
two skinny sunburnt
bustling rascals
offered a traveling melody
and a happy one too
it might and needs
to pay for dinner
I saw them
at night chasing
a big buzzing bug
same guitar raised like
the most powerful weapon
this time in unison
and with childlike passion
directing each other’s
moves and forming a
strategy to catch their prey
and that would be it
and that should be it
playing for playing’s sake

I don’t know why he chose my empty bathtub
for his final breath, his open casket
I entered the bathroom for a different ritual
that of washing my body, yet it was as if he knew
I will respect his last wishes in such vulnerable state
and I will ceremonially carry his lifeless little green body
to free it with a toss through the wide open kitchen window
after a quick awkward farewell dance in the hallway
instead of flushing it down the toilet into the unknown
corridors of urban sewer system
his body deserved to encounter the ground
and if my neighbours, perplexed, caught me
performing this ritual, what they really saw
was a human enriched by this grasshopper
entrusting her with his longing for an end
where green meets green meets earth
meets the life giving particles we will all be

if we didn’t excavate
would history be hidden?
is knowing about something
the essence of its existence?
philosophers suggested before
that to be is to be perceived
I burnt a candle in a church
of some saint for someone
to have the right tools
and to begin digging
into my love
I also thought this poem
would be about something else
it’s not
as hard to admit this, though
in the ancient city of Thessaloniki
nothing new under the sun
potent sentiment
it turns out this poem is about
the symbolic bows to rituals
and the hope for gestures
to exude the scent of what’s
hidden
the architecture of the yet
unexcavated cities
of desires to be known
way before they’re merely
perceived as artefacts

a shoal of hatted elderly ladies
swim together in a loose cluster
around six or seven in the evening
always the same spot — routine
that aids the flow of conversation
maybe swim is too dynamic a word
float! they float as if the currents
didn’t have power over them
as if, at this point, the sea would
feel odd if they didn’t appear
