Like a Cavafy Poem (short story)
In death, they came together again, and it was like a Cavafy poem
The story that follows is inspired by Greek poet Constantine Cavafy’s poem “Body, Remember,” (1916–8), included at the end. Whereas Cavafy was writing about his male lovers, the love described here is between a man and a woman.
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Their coming together was like a Cavafy poem. When they lay in each other’s arms, time compressed into space, and space condensed into time. Every anger, every resentment wrapped them more deeply into the folds of each other’s affections, like an old sweater that feels better on the skin than a new shirt even when its rough touch wounds. When they were together, the obstacles that stood in the way of their union suddenly lifted. The walls dividing them came tumbling down.
Lovemaking was a path to creation. Their words became flesh, so that something on this earth — not everything, just the body of language, the crusts of consciousness — would outlive them both.
“I don’t want to die,” she said to him once. They were walking along the canals of Amsterdam as afternoon edged into evening. The sun creased the horizon crimson while cumulus clouds mounted in the sky. “I want to live forever…
