ITHACA AT THE HOSPICE

I recite Ithaca to my uncle
because he used to read it to me

and reminisce about his native Smyrna
with the salty ache Cavafy captured.

For sixty-seven years he traded
petroleum and cacao with the rising ocean.

I need to work—his motto. Down the steps
in his son’s arms, wheelchair to the office.

Can you front me a loan? he asked last month.
Today his tongue is a dry thorn,

eyes glistening with ointment.
A few puny trees trim the traffic

but the hospice faces a wall
ascending to the thick, dioxide sky.

I read to him Ithaca again, the poem
about Odysseus’ homeward return.

In the sails of his lungs,
nostos and Aegean air.

PERSERVERANCE

Today Perseverance gathered 

its first Martian rock,

sealed it in a capsule,

sent it across silence.

Sotheby’s auctions Napoleon’s hat, 

a dredger remains lost 

in the untimely thaw 

of new Arctic waterways.

Last month during the wildfires, 

I was vacating my flat, 

failing every pregnancy test 

as smoke threaded the stairwell.

In the ultrasound my womb 

looked like a stone. 

My baby-wide pelvis 

uninhabited.

I brush out another handful 

of hair, tell myself: I never 

wanted children anyway,

trace routes on an Arctic map. 

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Vasiliki…. blurb