Thracian Wind (2000)

Now in this season for me
there is no rest from love,
out of the hard bright sky
a Thracian wind blowing
with searing rages and hurt-dark,
pitiless, sent by Aphrodite-Love
rocks and tosses my heart.

--Ibycus of Rhegiumm, transl. R. Lattimore

Soft and fair is the ocean
in its first bright days
but love also can darken,
its swells capped with
maenad foam salt-bitter
and full of tooth.
Now a hard breeze rocks
the boats in the harbor,
their tethers creaking
and unraveling to hands
stronger than our own.
A will beneath our will
hauls the swimmers far out.
The only route to safety
is oblique: Swimming
sideways from what frontally
mauls. Arriving at new names
like bright banners of warning
whipping flames on the beach.
Understand that any kiss
is peril in this wind.