I watched as the white
marble chipped, watched
as the coast eddied
with elegiac seafoam
and two men plunged their hands
into the deep
recesses of a small, seaside
cave. I held the silver letter
opener to my breast like a sword.
I didn’t know what I was
protecting myself from.

My friend, if you find
this letter in Paris
or Parnassus, remember
how the statues of boys bent
toward each other
like Actaeon’s hounds bared
themselves against their master’s
throat—an interminable
thirst for the flesh consuming
their primitive minds.
And remember me, sitting
across from you
at the teahouse feeling much
the same, our lips painted
the same shade of rooibos red.

How desire is a thing I might die for. Longing a well,
a long dark throat. Enter any body

of water and you give yourself up
to be swallowed. Even the stones

know that. I have writhed
against you as if against the black

bottom of a deep pool. I have emerged
from your grip breathless

and slicked. How easily
I could forget you

as separate, so essential
you feel to me now. You

beneath me like my own
blue shadow. You silent as the moon

drifts like a petal
across your skin, my mouth

to your lip—you a spring
I return to, unquenchable, and drink.