P
I met him on the pier, the wind blowing, the water choppy under grey skies. He left off caulking his boat with a cheery “Hello” and climbed onto the pier. How pleased he was to see me! Was I planning another trip?
Sitting on piles of rope, he told me of an underwater city he had seen, with a great bronze statue of Poseidon by a temple...
“The water was like glass, not a seaweed moving, not a current...” His hand swept sideways, spread flat. “Oh yes, coral...and plenty of fish, big ones. I swam halfway down to the city, but there was no air in me to swim deeper. A fish watched me, from one side of Poseidon, its body curving behind the statue. Poseidon’s eyes were made of jewels...”
Phaon is a handsome young man: I think a man is a man when he is handsome all over. I measured him with my eyes, as he talked to me. I measured his feet, hands, thighs, shoulders—the symmetry is unusual. His skin is the color of oakum and his muscles glide perceptibly under his skin. He smells of the sea.
I stayed a long while, talking on the piles of rope, exciting talk. What would it be like to swim with him? To dive deep with him?
We talked and talked. He never mentioned Kleis. And I forgot why I came.
P
I went to Alcaeus, to tell him about the submerged city.
“You mean Helike?” he asked. “A quake tore apart the coast and it went under,” he said, and described something of what I had heard.