Phoebe Giannisi
(Achilles)

the boat DREAM is on sale
the tugboat ACHILLES is looking at
STARLET straight in the eyes
and nobody has ever seen
PRINCE ABDOUL CHAZIZ
from Jordan set sail
ablaze at night
the palace is at anchor all year long
the king is absent
sixty five men
ghosts of the harbour
keep and wash it night and day
endlessly tend to the ship
and on the opposite side
you I can see you even today
mending nets inside the big fishing boats
ten in each
today sunday a day of rest before the full moon
you do domestic work like me
bent over your purple needlework
listening to music from the radio
every man a cup of tea and a radio
bending over you needle and mend
with eyes red weary
dark-skinned men with woollen sweaters
nobody here wears them
under the clouds your silence
and rain
the men from Africa
they said they only know of water
born inside water
sweet water not salty I say riding the bicycle
water of the Nile egyptian
and I say also
your hands hard frozen
from the cold of my country northern to you
fishing in our waters
patiently tending every year
waiting for the time
to return to Africa
when fishing stops for a bit when the drifters
come out
migratory birds swallows
return to their own water
their women
the earthen houses beside the river
although at this point I must ask
what is the place of the immigrant
There or Here
the origin or the arrival
how could he inhabit the Name
he who before now was nobody

Translated by Katerina Iliopoulou and Andrew Maxwell