I light mama’s lamp, so smooth to the fingers after all these years, like alabaster. The wick struggles into flame, as if reluctant to leave the past.
My Etruscan wall girl comes alive.
“Ah-hah-who.”
I take off my chain and pearl cluster and lay them in their scented box, pausing, sensing, dreaming.
Perhaps Phaon will be back soon—unexpectedly. I could not remain longer in Limnos, thinking he might return—tonight. I long for his mouth, the jerk of his legs, his obelisko’s tyranny.
Hunger—let me sleep tonight, tired after the voyage.
P
No sooner have I returned than I am upset. Life is constricted... I stand among Charaxos’ Egyptian treasures, confronting him: a twisted, gilded serpent god sneers at me: fragments of gold leaf blink: mellow gold is underfoot: I sway, as I talk, my parasol clenched across my belly.
“Now, I know,” I say to him.
“You know what?”