In a cafe, once more I heard

Your voice - those sparse and frugal notes.

Do they not say that you spoke your native Greek

With an English accent?

 

Briefest of visions: eyes meet across the cafe;

A man of about my age - eyelids heavy,

Perhaps from recent pleasures.

I begin the most innocent of conversations.

 

Again I see that image;

Ancient delight of flesh

Against guiltless flesh.

Sweeter still, in its remembering.

 

Most innocent of conversations: once more, I am mistaken.

He leaves; the moment lost - and to forego

The squalor of this place, I read again your lines; those sparse and frugal notes.

In a taverna, you found beauty, long ago.

 

And when you draw, with your slim, swift pen

The image of that memory - time's patient hostage;

Then how can I forget him, that boy whom you could not forget,

Or that music, in a foreign language?