Athens, 1970
Honeymoon
In the Blue Line bus, shaken about
like boiling butterbeans,
we raced towards Delphi – the omphalos,
navel of the cosmos –
to see the hero-hymns come alive.
But her morning-sickness forces our driver
to pull over,
as she descends to vomit in the dust.
We circled the base of Mt. Parnassus,
what seemed like hours. Phoebus-Apollo
showed not the least interest in us,
our mortal concerns, counting dates
from her last menstrual blood.
The shame when back at home her waters
broke a full two months too soon.
Athena in Mourning
We’d agreed to rendezvous at Olympic
Airways Agency on Syntagma Square.
When I was not there by four, or four-thirty
in the intense heat and chaos of traffic,
my girl-wife suffered a panic attack.
She blamed me when it happened there were two
identical offices on opposite sides of the Square.
As useless to have blamed Athena,
her head bowed, leaning on her spear,
for the havoc of the Persian Wars.