Sounion II, and Room 224

The whole of me swells and rises,

Some great warm tide

Summoned from an altar

Of candles, and shattered clay,

And soapy, salt-caked stones,

From the sea,

From the god of the sea,

From the temple of the god of the sea.

Called to oneness,

Carnal prayer,

And the sighing little deaths,

You whisper under me,

Devotions and wonders.

Only the best of us lingers,

And you wrap me tight,

And tell me everything will be fine,

And we are Triton and Nereid,

And my father will not be dying

Under fluorescent tube lamps

In some cookie cut room,

With linoleum tiles,

Because we said our prayers,

Entwined and huffing our ecstasy,

And you quaked like the earth

At the trident's whim,

And you smiled your untamed soul,

It crashed over me like hurricane breakers,

And I was not a soldier

Who cannot find his way on familiar shores,

Watching his father's

Insides turn to outsides

In room 224

At the temple on the edge of the Styx.

I am Poseidon and you are Amphitrite,

And we are together something more

Than each of us apart.

We groaned, and dripped, and burned,

And you tell me everything will be fine,

And I believe you.