In that room on Naxos, the hotel room in the little one-street har- bor town we walked a mile or two from to the perfect mile-long beach with only a few Germans Gerhard and Ulrike and the wiz- ened woman archeolo- gist with her much younger lover and that sweet taverna just for us the daz- zling beach where we swam nude and where I tried to lift you out of the water like a goddess doing beau- tifully until the wa- ter wasn’t under you —in that lamplit bed- room (or was it on the ferry was it later?) when I tried to tell you it had been won- derful but it was over you didn’t hear me didn’t understand what I was saying and I kept on going so as not to hurt you and then fell in love a- gain: Where would we be now if you had heard me if our is- land time had been a sun-dazed moment not the prelude to a long long story rife with declarations and ad- missions one or the other of us didn’t hear?