Epic - Ange Mlinko

[Larry Robinson]

Epic 

It’s you I’d like to see Greece again with
You I’d like to take to bed of cyclamen
You know I nurse a certain myth
about myself              that I descend
de tribus d’origine asiatique
and am part Thracian or Macedonian
cleaving to a Hellenic mystique
after centuries’ migration inland

a full moon             rising over the Acropolis
I can repeat the scene        this time à deux
as then I had no one to kiss
slicing halloumi amid the hullabaloo
of a rooftop taverna in   July
The doors that opened to lovers
pulled like tree roots from darkness        
close upon us now like book covers

The alcove in which we embrace
is cool with brilliant tile
and weirded by a dove’s note       chase
of ouzo with Uzi          junta-style
History makes its noise      we duck
till it passes      Love we think is our due
Not we think like the epoch
the unchosen thing we’re wedded to

	- Ange Mlinko