Antiquity

In the clouded hours before dawn
when the world is a shadowed web,
she surrenders to the stories told by stars
that soon fade in the brightening sky.

She is stalked by hunger
as sharp as salt on blood,
as deep as an empty jar.
The past is metallic under her tongue.

She recalls how men
sampled the wine and olives,
sated their ravenous appetites
with envy and wit, charm and then lust,

but nowhere in that old life
can Pandora remember the taste of love.