Ephebe
       

My father once had a student whom he loved,
a slender man, almost still a boy.

Aerugo rust of dusk,
down where the fescue grass vanished
into stubble fields.

We lived by fields
that now are streets.

Aleatory, aliquot:
factors of chance.

My father kept in his heart the student and myself,
we'd ride home late at night;
even by well known stars I could not navigate.

The young man could run like a deer,
and then I too learned to run
quickly and got so slender,
I couldn't see or hear. Fine, soft
hair, lanugo, on my shoulders.

So animals in winter almost starving deepen
their keep, turning in one furrow.
My father loved his student, and also me,
but no one survived his desire:

in winter, animals sleep, soft and teleological
the place where sleep drives,
factoring night.

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Copyright © 2016 Claire Millikin All rights reserved
from Tartessos and Other Cities
2Leaf Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission