Agape

For you I will become the stoneless olive, pulled warm
from leaves, slyly entered and perfectly left: intact

but barren inside the circle.  In the dream of a child, the man
looks at the girl with unflinching interest.  She will mistake

this for that  pull she feels as he winks and strides, lone,
in his own direction.  On the road, the roll of tires

hitting gravel and the singe-sound of crickets.  She opens
the door, Efharisto, steps inside.  She is willing to risk the dark

locus of a strange, estranged man—his blood and its pressure
in her veins.  E agape mou yia sena, she might say, my love for you,

the gape of it inside me.  Tonight, she will sleep inside the moon
of her small silver tent.  Pour careful water over hot coal, watch smoke

as it rises, slow, into night—