Almost as soon as we got to Greece, the first evening 
on the island, I tried to go back to you and our life.
Did it wrong. Made the same mistakes as others, 
confusing that home with death. Went to the graveyard 
instead of the door opening back. I had become 
ordinary again. Cats on the path fled away from me.
The sky was red and the world darkening. Thistles
shoulder-high were black against the silver Aegean.
I was going to steal a clay pot for your memory, 
but the gate was locked. I looked through and discovered 
candles lit in niches high on the gravestones.
Small lights shining among the cypress trees
as if for me. I saw how seriously they took the dark 
and gave up. Went back to my new life. Past the prison 
at the edge of town. Between two houses for the poor.
I stole a rose that grew over the wall of the villa 
to give my husband in the house where I live now, 
an apology for the unfaithfulness of this longing 
after the dear mystery of owls in that different night.