You are someone who once slept
under an olive tree, and I lay awake
in the shade we’d partitioned,
glad to be awake because that meant
I wasn’t missing the time you slept
under an olive tree. Fancy that, I thought,
a life in which you sleep deep
in Arkadian country, a quiet grove,
not a care in the rest of the world,
at peace under your Panama.
Let the bees buzz, let the cicadas cicada,
the crickets cricket, for I alone
am the keeper of that hour and I alone
know that as the shade moved across you
I saved you from burning by taking off my shirt
to lay it over your bare arm.
Of the woman you fell for after me,
there isn’t the same fire, you said,
as though, despite all my ministrations,
all my care, I’d somehow burnt you.