The lightning played among the stars and wet the sail and our helmsman bent sleepily over the rudder: it was a night for love and when the cabin had cooled, Phaon and I sought each other: he placed an orange in my hand, the singing went on, the sea sobbed, the orange fell.
“Phaon?”
“What is it?”
Keep me, wait, go on, love me, don’t...I wanted to say so much.
I caressed him, breathed him in, the sanctity, the favor, the graciousness, the ephemeral. I wandered through caves. I dove to the wreck of the red-gold ship. I...
Later, we divided the orange and its sweet dribbled over us and he pressed his mouth there and we laughed, thinking with body.
I woke to see the moon sink below the ocean, to see how beautiful he was, his ship and fish swaying as a fresh wind clattered the sail.
Noon found us back in Mytilene.
P
Phaon