George Economou (1934-2019)

You are sitting down
to a late lunch
in my castle on a hill

while a jazz trio plays

then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place—

and you smell
the scent of roses and feel
my hair growing

on every part of your skin

but not the palms
of my hands or the soles
of your feet

Day One

I am standing
in front of a group of musicians
controlling

the speed of sound

then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place—

saliva pools behind
your teeth sinuous the rhythms
under my skin

your lips move

audible inaudible
and I begin to chant a secret
tribal language

Day Two

In a triangle of haze
and smoke I am following
a marching band

appear and disappear

then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place—

spirals of veins pulsate
nerves and tendons drink color
sight smell taste

pale and red your lips

my tongue protrudes
from your mouth and I taste
the rain

Day Three

You are hanging
upside down and side to side
I swing

earth air fire water

then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place—

I am a barley plant
cut down dead white the barley
plant cut down

you are a pouched mammal

attached to a nipple
mother and father crawled
onto the land

Day Four

I am flapping
my right hand and your left
hand is balled into a fist

the universe contracts e x p a n d s

then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place—

the smell of saffron
and lilac morning to evening
evening to morning

milk of the mother misery

milk of the father terror
vigilant the babe sucking carnal/
spiritual

Day Five

Through the gaps
of my fingers vibrating subatomic
particles blink in and out

vertical/ horizontal

then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place—

a breast vein
as thick as a finger amorous
the greedy seed

every day bears the data

grain grape bread
and wine your skeletal frame
the limbs spreading apart

Day Six

Behind you
a black line appears disappears
a latent image

a wall of brown dust

then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place—

a black line curved
like an embrace lay your hand
feel the bones

under my skin

your sculpted pelvis
vertical/ horizontal corkscrews
of white smoke

Day Seven

In the twenty-first century
the here-and-now in the zone
diverging

from a course of events

then suddenly
a chemical reaction takes
place—

a metallic taste on
my tongue I am an old
woman

sipping black tea

you are a little boy
sitting cross-legged under
a dead blue glow