early morning sin

As sunrise pierces through a wasted heart,

this city has a tricky way of keeping me close—

marrying me to the shade of its stone walls,

and offering solace in cluttered space.

It’s here that I close my eyes

quietly retrieving my old friend—

taken from a place where sea and sand stretched for miles

and when tears only came from salt water and good humor.

It was borrowed time, lost on us

those days we played in sheets,

until silk strands of brown hair and bare skin

wove thread counts of consent,

forgetting to breathe the second lips met

and how his hair,

wrapped in the day’s sweat and salt air

paired so well with quiet streets.

Letting him sleep while I tip-toed on creaky sheets 

born from slabs of wood once tall as trees.

“Little dove,” he’d coo from the room,

calling me back to trace lines and curves well-loved.

And I’d wait each morning for another late night in linens

unraveling six feet, three inches of him.

But now, only sweet grapes and cigarettes keep me up

until young dew kisses the same cobblestones

that carried me home,

like Odysseus returning from early morning sin.

It’s these mornings above the Aegean—

whose forgiving waters sparkle with promise in late summer heat,

that pull on the prickly pleasures of a soul.

And when it’s finally time to go,

long legs and tan feet shuffle down a dirt road alone

while hands carry lemons on a path back to a place nobody knows.