Dear Mr. Merrill

I hope you'll pardon the informality   

of this letter, postmarked Olympia   

(Greece, not Washington), its task not simple:   

crossing lines you've crossed, time, mortality,   

to find you, who spent a lifetime crossing lines   

out, twisting, polishing them to shine   

cool and lustrous as the statue I fell in   

love with yesterday. I'm sure you saw him   

too, that perfect Hermes by Praxitelis,   

full lips, hips contrapposto. I wished to draw him   

down, latter-day Pygmalion, and embrace   

him. Or barring Eros (and the guards) I'd trace   

his face, the supple muscle of the marble.   

I had a student who resembled him—   

yes, Angelos—arrogant and beautiful.   

I never touched him though he touches me in dreams.   

Eros dangles his perfection in our faces   

like one-armed Hermes with his promise of the grapes.   

I was certain I'd dream of him last night.   

Instead I dreamed another in the growing chain   

of others with whom it ended not quite   

right. But the thirst was perfect, if its price pain   

and shattered crystal, spilling wine, all part   

and parcel of our imperfect lives. Then Art   

startles out of heartache, marble or page.   

You learned this long ago. Now I too see   

the wildest things require the strongest cages,   

the panther's double bars, or the seeds,   

bloodysweet and bitter, in the pomegranate's   

rind. Love held tight in a sonnet.