In Athens, I’m hunched in front of stone
reliefs of ancient nude warriors,
fantasising about you. Some are faceless,
cockless, just the balls and calves
remain. Others, their wreck
of limbs held in imagined positions
with plastic rods, which, en masse,
gives a pleasant illusion
of patriarchal dismantling. Imagine.

Some of their noses are, like my own,
battered; a bust representing a goddess
bears what appear to be tears
staining the marble train from one eye
due to chance oxidisation, we’re told.
The women statues are described as young
and owned. All are perceived
as white due to modern display,
an uncolouring.

This preservation of big, bald heads
and erotic fragments. It’s funny
proclaiming them men and women
when they were just chiselled.
The fantasies we insist on,
and those I keep to myself
among the rubble that’s left
as rubble, and that which is
propped up for effect.