Raki 

It’s a gravel-filled trek up the steep  
hill to the old church,  
and I eye the donkeys for rent 

—off to the side, in the shade—  
thinking getting there would be easiest  
on the little one. But that one 

only the donkey-keeper rides. 
He introduces me to Penelope, taller,  
darker, and quietly waiting,  

chewing on hay. Antiquity’s  
depictions of Silenus,  
a minor winemaking god,  

often render him drunk, too wiped-out 
to walk, borne by a tolerant  
donkey, and perhaps in homage  

to this, the donkey-keeper’s wife  
runs over with raki 
in a chipped crystal glass and a dish  

with some sweets. Penelope trots  
dangerously close to the precipitous  
drop where the views are best. 

I take a few more sips of raki, 
afraid to look, Penelope braying, 
the blue Aegean embayed below. 

SUSANA H. CASE

Susana H. Case is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently If This Isn’t Love (Broadstone Books, 2023), and co-editor with Margo Taft Stever of I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe (Milk & Cake Press, 2022), awarded Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award.