You read all that Greek lit in grade school, right?
Guys sailing around these same islands for
years, going insane. The past disarming

when placed in the present. We reject
memory if given without advance notice.
Think about forms of transport: from foot

to horse to automobile, we accelerate over
continents, but we have never thus tamed
the oceans: boats still move just as fast.

Look, the next isle – Aegean currents
propelling messages across eyelines and times.
The firm lights of modern manses pepper

a way to you. I want to wave but no
one will receive it. The speed of light just
as worthless as memory in this instance.

Stars as lost to us as. I can hear
my missing. Essential only to me. I
read about the ruins of a labyrinth

found on Crete. Not reasonably the
Minotaur’s but, maybe? Noticing how
wet the Greek “s” is pronounced. My tongue

primed for a different language. A lute buried
in the genes. My missing play it constantly.
All my vowels and voiced attuned to their legacy.