Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke: The Anorexia of Existence

I am not hungry, I am not in pain,

I don't stink.

Maybe I suffer deep inside

and don't know it.

I only pretend to laugh

I don't desire the impossible

nor the possible;

bodies forbidden for me

don't satiate my glance.

At the sky I look sometimes

full of desire

at the moment the sun withdraws its shine

and the azure lover surrenders

to the spell of the night.

My only contribution

to the whirlpool of the world

is my steady breath.

But I also feel another

weird contribution:

an agony suddenly seizes me

for the human pain

that stretches on the earth

like a ritual tablecloth

drenched in blood:

it covers myths and gods

identical to life

it is eternally reborn.

Yes, I want to cry now

but even the source of my tears

has dried out.

Translated from the Greek by the author