SANTORINI

A bright blue door
over their brick terrace wall
bears the load of the afternoon filled
with the sweet heavy smell of loukoumades.
They joke about not having tried hard enough,
then a final balcony dance,
sun stalking her white lace frock,
their tight practiced steps.

They might have held out for love
in Spain, Italy, but everything feels more
urgent in Thira, the Greek town God lifted
and set just out of reach of the volcano.
They should have waited for rock to cool,
explored one more sunken site.

An emptiness in the street,
a void not allowed its fill until
the afternoon break is over and kafenoia
begin to swell with yawning men.
It’s what the old do here; after all,
they fear nothing since the earthquakes,
hold on to the story of how the door
stood strong while all around it crumbled..

On their last stroll around the island,
they reach again to the hunched fig branches
before they mount mules and zigzag
their way down to the ferry, ignore
the direct route of the cable car.

They’ve left few words unsaid, so he sidles
close, labors to describe the paint color
he bought when he knew her will was caving,
his covert project for the shuttered
darkness after she sails.