& love was war
before Alexander weeping for more worlds,
before Sappho’s grief drowned the moon.
no Orpheus, no Eurydice—
a chipped obol in Charon’s palm,
a candle snuffed before the prayer.
a name that remembers me backward,
yet not at all—
a book erasing each word as it’s read that never meant to skim.
I wrote you into the Iliad—
the sea does not keep its dead.