The poem
In a cafe, once more I heard Your voice - those sparse and frugal notes. Do they not say that you spoke your native Greek With an English accent?
Briefest of visions: eyes meet across the cafe; A man of about my age - eyelids heavy, Perhaps from recent pleasures. I begin the most innocent of conversations.
Again I see that image; Ancient delight of flesh Against guiltless flesh. Sweeter still, in its remembering.
Most innocent of conversations: once more, I am mistaken. He leaves; the moment lost - and to forego The squalor of this place, I read again your lines; those sparse and frugal notes. In a taverna, you found beauty, long ago.
And when you draw, with your slim, swift pen The image of that memory - time's patient hostage; Then how can I forget him, that boy whom you could not forget, Or that music, in a foreign language?