THRASYBULUS STREET

My life is haunted on this wretched bed

by all those bodies that rolled

on the blanket.  So many names, so much mist,

such unbearable sorrow.

The plaster is falling on the walls,

through the holes a thousand eyes,

voices weak, stifled

and years -- what, six? -- of much of a muchness:

the tap, the melted soap, the trash

on the stairs, empty bottles, shrivelled condoms

like T-shirts with no warm body to wear them,

the looking-glass with time stuck

in its cracks.  Your face.

A north wind is blowing, the drizzle drenches

the tin pots of pelargonium in the backyard,

remember?

The iron staircase with the fat landlady

who would ask for the rent after Mass,

the priest’s eyes through the church window opposite

reminding me of the inferno,

the devil in military police uniform lighting a cigarette

on the corner further down, suspicious, threatening

his gun aimed at me

ready to grab my money and my neck.

Rat-tat, the rain has stopped.  So much has happened

since you left.

I gather pieces of your face

on every random face, as the king

his mangled son in the fairy tale.

Winter has set.  Nutmeg.  Upstairs they are baking must-jelly.

“How can a few kóllyva* feed

all the beggars?” says the churchwarden.

“Yesterday you left your door open again.

Someone wearing a black duffel coat came knocking
around eight o’clock.

You should be careful;

all those junkies, criminals and paupers                                                

could clean you out.

(Suddenly there was a smell of jasmine; I quivered; where can you be?)

He said he was looking for you, apparently you were expecting him,

an acquaintance of yours.”

“Yes,” I replied, “I was expecting him, he is Death.”

“Oh, balderdash, you’re still young man,

touch wood,

but there’s no harm in being more careful.”

She too remembers you, but mum’s the word.

She looks sidelong at me as she plucks pelargonium.

But I too get my own back on you, you roughneck --

I shut the ramshackle door

and eat your flesh without remorse

like a cat that tears to bits her kittens in the washroom.  

Translated from the Greek by Yannis Goumas