NEAR CORFU

Sloped in

Cephalonian crag -

Caked with olive trees,

gray green leaves,

small pale lobes,

her hidden place.

She slides in, bit by bit.

First a toe, an arm, a leg,

under a leg, an ear -

away from village tongues,

their knots, their spit,

this cruelty of closeness.

*

And the land becomes a map,

geology the way in

geography a way out,

as she bakes

into the island soil,

into the limestone

piked and chewed

for olive pressing/ olive

dancing.

*

Tomorrow, the oil

will slowly rise,

to cover the bread,

anoint the sick,

to fill the lamp

and float the cork,

and as the cotton burns

and the fire goes out,

seven priests will whisper vespers,

and line a glassy cross on all the palms,

and all the heads, the cheeks, the chin

of the bowed and begging women.

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