Five weeks after we met
two weeks after we'd been living
together, in heaving heat, he walked me to the train station.
We saw the Acropolis along the way, the ruin cliffed
in high sky. He carried my backpack, my five weeks humped
behind his shoulders. At a crossroad he peeled
his hand from mine and gave me
a paper bag — What is this, I’d asked, and he said, as if he would
every day for many years, for when you get hungry.
Honey sandwich and apple. We passed
narrow train tracks, where trains sometimes came, ducked
station turnstiles that have not worked in months. We sat in silence
and when my train came,
air splattered against me like paint. We turned to each other, he pressed
my head into his wet chest, my heart between his stomach and his hand.
I think I’ve said all I want to say, he said and
into his chest I told him, he who had said he did not love me,
I love you
through the window I saw him, standing,
the train moved, I went back
to not knowing him, what we grew
emptying,
mile by mile.
