Just a Man

And here’s the island of Palaia Kameni,

in the caldera of Santorini, where nothing is,

where no one lives, except a man.

Oh and seeping iron, volcanic sand. One man:

his nets and pots. Nothing to see

except the tarp, his painted buckets, axe,

Plato barking at the smoke. No one but the crabs

that nibble his feet, his ingrown hairs, his rock rubbed

knees, the buttery fish he’ll give up for lent,

a glass of unsalted water sipped, the afternoon sweat

between his pecs, the pee break at the omen rock, rust stains

on his winded shirts. Just the ash ocean he draws

for days on stone, fingers smithed with soot. Just the moon

slide and the fishbone dream of flinging the flat sky

toward mountainous space. Nothing. The heavy hit

of Aegean dark, the broil of animated ions,

mutter of gulls. This is the void—

one God to talk to, all that silence, the solitary bell. The candle

he lights against evening, the open wound of time,

seaglass jarred like an icon, kaleidoscoping on his porch.

The sun’s last peach stripes, crust of waking

when it’s time to sleep, the musty coverlet,

pale inscription of Mary’s feet, the tantrum of a jammed

can opener, the holler of his chickens at dusk, their gullet

pulled for boiling, the fat rising in the froth. The first sip

of wine like another’s tongue, that basalt-scented prayer

crunched between teeth, the cat’s claw sleeping

on his throat, the song from behind the bushes. More candles,

caressed crosses, the game of sticks, clack

and concentration, sore wrists, sudden end—

hunger; feta, meat, wiped face, shine

of a mirror on the back of his hand.