10/26/2024 drafted, posted January 5, 2025
she visited my Latin class bare-armed
shoulders square and wide beneath
a blue singlet top brown hair burnished
and curled as if sun-bright bronze
she seemed impossible she spent summers
diving for barnacled jars once used for wine
oil or honey retrieved the upturned ends
of marble pillars left in the skeletal holds
of old shipwrecks something in her polished
and refined yet cleanly useful sharp
as a jeweled fibulae under strict
museum lights she told us she pulled
things once thought lost back into air
she showed us grainy footage of old gods
held in her gold arms as she skillfully
tucked straps and placed pulleys in order
to securely pull them back up toward
the shifting surface-lit Mediterranean
she kicked gracefully through curtains
of cautious silver fishes I thought of her
often after wishing I could follow her
down into that sea in my polyester uniform
shirt and khaki skirt twisted white knee socks
and scuffed saddle oxfords in a corner
I often pretended to read in order
to think of her without interruption