Marine Venus Poem by Bernard Henrie

My Greek history teacher gave us the Ionic coast,
lectures bringing the Peloponnese vividly to life;
we could see ripples trailing the ship of Ulysses,
feel the wild confusion of Penelope and her son;
her feet white as a baby in the bath; hair drying
on the hot seacoast wind.

At her home, Professor West showed us
engravings, sheet music and exquisite calligraphy
gathered in Phoenician trading stations, a violet
handkerchief protruding from her dress sleeve,
small breasts formed into a parenthesis, a hint
of stutter under her perfect Greek diction;

She was the first, but not the last
older woman I would fall in love with.

Ithaca saturating the color of her sea-blue eyes.
The sun off Mykonos blinding an aged observer,
ears grown deaf from years of ocean waves.

An ouzo toast to close out our early night;
the room darkening over her collected treasures
of ancient Greece.

On a piano, unplayed all evening, a gold framed
photo of her aviator husband as he looked 20
years ago;

his plane fallen by his own will into the Aegean.