“Can I paint you?” late one night

Three afternoons in fading light

Never met a purer heart

One so entirely formed on art

Your world is under an attack

So you are bringing fresco back

Slowly brush progressed to touch

And fingers traced along every shape

The painter from Thessaloniki

Cut the eyes from the mask of me

For both a muse we’re finding

On the winter island

Shadowed face and rolling vowel

The bar contained a whispered vow

What will we do today?

I know a place the Romans lay

Tongue in cheek and heart in hand

Try not to mock the earnest man

Walk a winding forest road

There’s something in the air I’m told

The painter from Thessaloniki

Cut the eyes from the mask of me

For both a muse we’re finding

On the winter island

The walls were painted just as white

As clouds above that Grecian isle

You said I was Lady Ulysses

And twisted grass around our fingers

We rang the bell but didn’t tell

Of the wedding in the church that day

The next day I would sail away

The painter from Thessaloniki

Cut the eyes from the mask of me

For both a muse we’re finding

On the winter island