by James Collier

Athens vanishes in a blast of dust. I spent, huh? Uh-huh. Here, gimme your glass.
crowned king of the phoenix monster truck! Oh wait, this is uh… this is ‘internet dude’
oblivion, because the Parthenon was closed fce. Ok so... Oh wow, three fucking boring
and death. There are whole suburbs in Florlly incredible, fuck that dude! He’s maybe
abandoned pools filling slowly with rain. The of always assumed you were kind of
villas of luck’s has-beens, their poured foundast kind of… you know? What? Well come
ancient ruins. My Phoenix king’s snake-hand ou know? And just by your play-by-play,
with vacant eyes and a mistrust of philosophy. that you like to be— You know I like to get
has no beginning, no end, only knots and kottom— Then don’t bottom— And you know
groans, the remembered explosions blomming lit up!— And you almost never get fucked!
Our bus the Aegean is a mass of gleams, the n sorry it’s just, it’s the… It’s just that you
pages of an unwritten book. We’re a time mad across your forehead. So I just… Like right
Mount Parnassus to the Delphic Oracle with ad across your face! Just like it, yes. I mean
regalia. Brusied, crosshatched with scars, my g screaming face down, ass up b-b-bang!
bus’s engine slips into a fitful sleep. He right? Maybe? Maybe? Anyway. Uh-huh.
explanation for his own heroics, the way an a I don’t know. Nothing. No?— No?— No. I’m
the relics and unearthed torsos, but has fourhat? Are you kidding me? Er, no, I’m not. I
feel them as we walk the path from parking I slept with like most of my friends. Oh my
on tablets, crushed underfoot like mollusk syou slept with Andy, you slept with Jamar
guides tell us about Delphi’s glories, Plutarno, no— And I think that it would be… fun.
mouth of a writhing woman, the Oracle spok— I mean not like ‘nice’ but good and sexy.
with wrung, in tongues and grandiose langse me for a second so I can grab my wine.
tenderness, whose eyes turned inward and t. You think you wanna fuck me?— Yeah, I
centuries, past the blooming of countless explen, you know I’m stronger than you. Yes,
ghosts on the steps to the crumbling stadiumwanna fuck you. Ok. You sure? I’m totally
where Apollo’s statue once stood, the passe.— Oh, I’m close— You Are?— Yeah— Really?
rock face, snapping fragments of a moment th fall out I’m coming out, ok? Are you ok?
to come, recalling the smell of pine and diesat I am actually, sorry. Hold on one second.
to Athens, through groves and along the coastfine. I’m just hanging out with Brenden
striking  the  cliff  face,  abrading  the  rocks.

James Collier is a queer settler poet living and writing in Edmonton on Treaty 6 territory, on stolen Papaschase and Métis lands. Their work has appeared in Glass Buffalo magazine, the Hart House Review, antilang., Carousel, Augur magazine, and CV2.