Ποικιλόθρον᾽ α᾽θανάτ᾽ Αφρόδιτα
                —Sappho, Fragment 1

I gather you were in the lobby 
Minutes before. 
Terrifying to almost see you again.   
I smelled the shockwave, the burning air.

You were too sexual
To be bourgeois, screams from the jungle 
On top of Mount Olympus. 
You were too violently beautiful.

Last night I looked up at the sky,    
Lights out as I was falling asleep. 
There was the moon, a full moon, or nearly.
It was you.

I wasn’t, but I could have been, 
A god I was living in.
I chose not to come out
Onstage and tell them what a poem is about.