She broke away
from our table in Piraeus
to dance to the Bouzouki
at the café on the bay.

She was drawn by the music,
by the taught metallic beat,
of the Kalamatianos
with its diastolic flow,
the flywheel of a watch,
moving clockwise, anticlockwise
to the heartbeat of the dance.
Arms entwined, all were one
like a crab from the Aegean
scuttling, scuttling to the pulse.
And I loved her as she laughed
in white cottons bought in Naxos
as her scarf from Santorini
scattered colors in the air,
and she danced the Syrtaki
as if no-one else was there.
And I watched as if forever,
loving voyeur lost in time,
like a painter freezing motion
in an icon byzantine.

And though the music’s ended,
my Athena is still dancing,
dancing, dancing, dancing
across the canvass of my mind.