At the Gulf of Patras

Arriving in Nafpaktos at dusk,
we found an old hotel above the port,
Venetian in aspect, white,
stucco flaking, iron balconies
dotted with rust.
We climbed worn stairs to bed,
our room illuminated
through closed shutters
by bars of fading light.

Awakening at dawn,
I cut my left thumb
reaching for a razor.
You laughed; I bled.
You told me how Cervantes also
injured his left hand
(in a greater cause, of course, you said)
when struck by Turkish bullets
at the Battle of Lepanto
below us in the gulf.
You opened the shutters.

All this happened decades ago.
I remember your laugh,
the bite of the blade,
the peeling shutters, how later
we walked to the harbor
and saw the morning’s catch,
fish upon fish along the quay
in iridescent piles,
blood lining their gills.

Archaeology

You return to my dreams incognito.
Tonight, disguised as a statue,
you hide among cypress roots
to waylay me on my path.

As I enter the grove
I see no one.
You lie neck deep in the ground.
Your face seems a species of stone.

Then you smile the archaic smile:
You were buried alive, you explain,
and time has turned you to marble.
You beg me to exhume you.

For love of art, you say
or for the sake of archaeology–
But too much earth lies between us
in dusty unnumbered particles.

Tomorrow I’ll see cypresses
outside my window and recall
how my hands refused to dig
in that dry soil.

When you were a woman
you withheld nothing from me.
Not mind, nor language nor embrace.
I can never forgive you for this.

C. R. Cantor lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and works at the University of Pennsylvania.