In a stone alley
in Athens' old town,
a woman's bright laughter
echoes as if for the first time.
Under the street light, her lover
shoves his hand into the front
of her blue-jeans,
finds the warm salt of her.

At the Acropolis,
which sparkles now like a ship
entering a harbor,
the statues of the Erechtheion
rest their weight
on one foot, then another.
Their pleated garments
reveal the fullness of their bodies—
shoulder, thigh, breast—
as if desire swam there too.

Their pocked faces are vacant.
Around the figures, marble glitters,
the rubble of hewn stone.