Heat

In the heat of Greece
our sternums pressed together
spurted water.
I drank your sweat
along with your kisses
your sigh
in the shade of the shutters.
There as the violent afternoon
came on, you too were ablaze
with your tangled hair
your divine lashes
your laughter refracted
through the salty prisms of passion.
In the sizzling heat
in the total stillness—
the only shadow above us
black as destiny—
the outline of our existence
an equation of insects.
August festered
while relentless cicadas
echoed the thrush's closing lines.
Not a breath of air...
The pedantic fly that defiles everything
sits on your cock
drinking your sap.
The watermelon-man
passes with his megaphone.
The afternoon
at my feet
like a severed head.


Translated from the Greek by Christina Lazaridi