Christopher Bakken
Altar
Maybe it’s enough to say, in hindsight,
the conditions were right for bleeding there.
Maybe it’s enough to know he swam at night,
climbed jagged rock to offer the required flesh.
By then, he knew the dream had given all it had,
collapsing, as dreams do, into real seas.
The island took from him, then threw him
with a wave. And that was June.
Not by chance the blood turned back to water.
No accident that salt burned in the wound.
The idea of July was still too much.
Christopher Bakken is the author of the culinary memoir, Honey, Olives, Octopus: Adventures at the Greek Table, as well as two books of poetry, Goat Funeral and After Greece. He is also co-translator of The Lions’ Gate: Selected Poems of Titos Patrikios.
Return to July 2014 Edition
Maybe it’s enough to say, in hindsight,
the conditions were right for bleeding there.
Maybe it’s enough to know he swam at night,
climbed jagged rock to offer the required flesh.
By then, he knew the dream had given all it had,
collapsing, as dreams do, into real seas.
The island took from him, then threw him
with a wave. And that was June.
Not by chance the blood turned back to water.
No accident that salt burned in the wound.
The idea of July was still too much.
Christopher Bakken is the author of the culinary memoir, Honey, Olives, Octopus: Adventures at the Greek Table, as well as two books of poetry, Goat Funeral and After Greece. He is also co-translator of The Lions’ Gate: Selected Poems of Titos Patrikios.
Return to July 2014 Edition