The guy who approached me
on the steps of the Athens museum
said nothing inside

is as beautiful as you.
Before we used ‘trafficking”
as the prime-time euphemism

for the sex-slave trade,
he promised me a camera,
one like Ansel Adams used.

But I knew he would be disappointed;
because I was, on close inspection,
artless, clumsy, monkey-minded

definitely more asymmetric
than anything on an urn. So,
not wishing to disappoint him,

I said no.
If he had asked me
to help him find his puppy,

today I’d probably be a toothless
discard from some hellhole
in Thessalonica.

Even now my flaws
make me comfortable in their home;
Father and Mother me.