More statuesque than any of her sisters
she stepped off her pedestal,
losing none of her allure in doing so.
Her lips were moving, but I heard no sound,
just a kind of tune inside my head:
Tell me everything. Whatever you say will be
our secret, yours and mine, locked in my heart,
which, as of now, is yours forever.

She held out her hands, a tender look on her face.
The folds of her chiton slipped
from a marble shoulder.
The birds had stopped singing,
it was night already,
and her name was on the tip of my tongue.