Another Road Home

thickened and his lips, purple as grapes,

further purpled. When I also spun such

spinning facilities as these, my own

vines ripened with what I hoped might prove

more promising fruit. Yios mou, set the large

man’s handsome books aside and sit with me

on the airy balcony beside our kind

and loving Father Iakovos. Truth may

prove to be no such a thing as matter

for our mulling; still, this evening spread out

before our mountain, above our mountain tea

suggests in its late, cypress-scented air

a pressing density, a wine-like, whelming

cup, ksinómavro—deep and dark, substantial.

And the road? Meandering, manifestly

inconclusive, and for that reason not

so likely to ferment blithe disregard.