As I walked home, I felt that my mind had been invaded by everything around me. I tried to hurry, thinking I’d remember all, the prices of the traders, the baskets of starfish, the white parrot; I’ll remember his voice, his feet in the dust, his smiles.
Exekias babbled dully about food and flagrant cheating, her basket bumping my hip. I wondered how I could wait, through the days ahead, how could I occupy myself, until Phaon and I sailed? It was a question for water clocks and gulls, spindrift and wind, thought unfolding in my room, scudding across the floor to the window, stopping there, leaping out, to other lands, other times, backlashing with the net that contains yesterday...flames in a cruse...Atthis, slipping her perfumed hands over my eyes...
P
My lips burn, my hands are moist, I feel faint... Is that my voice, the sound of my laughter? Am I walking over these tiles?
Did I have supper last night? Drink? Rehearse a song?
My girls realize I am lost—wandering. I can’t look into their eyes for long. When I see Kleis cross the room a trickle of ice slips down my back.
What if he finds me too old, what if my love doesn’t please him...if he mocks me, or stands in awe, or wants to amuse himself?
Phaon...
I see you against every wall, against the sky, in the dark, in the sun under the trees. My flesh aches, my arms melt. Never has passion fermented so strongly in me.
Yet no messenger comes.