by Brett Rutherford
Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 65.
Now I have Myiscus,
the bliss of Olympians
seems right at hand.
True, no magic apples
stop time and age for us.
The cup he bears me
has water only. Too good
to last this pleasure is,
What if great Zeus
on high,
tiring of his never-aging
Ganymede, youth
of a thousand years,
would pluck from me
this prize I treasure
but do not deserve?
What if my poems
provoke
a curiosity divine?
I fear to walk with him
under a clear blue sky.
Beware, Myiscus dear,
the swooping wings,
the raptor claws!
