Tomaz Salamun

Greek Island

Little hands. If you slice up a cocktail umbrella
and twirl it around in your fingers. They spit
like little dogs who drank too much water.  They shuffle.

Their boats barely avoid the rocks. It wasn't clear
if we were escaping under the sea or mainly
at sea level. We were leaving the island in paradise

as tourists. At the same time I was leaving by plane
and by boat and I didn't have two bodies. I saw it
from above, in the light, at seven or eight in the evening,

in August and from sea level, which was under
my fingers. Burned by manna, splashed with it. She
was walking nearby, our company, which had

discovered the island, loved it and dispersed.
The children of the nomenklatura spurt blood.
Sticks spurt honey. Man cannot compete

for the princess. That's the beauty of communism,
if the aristocracy take sit to heart. First
the view from the air disappeared,

but not from the sea. As if fog grew in dense layers,
as if a brush, to the left of the hydrofoil, drew
brown and greasy walls. The boat sped off,

zigzagging, the threatening layers of flysch
grew more intense. The boat also turned 
into a submarine. I remembered the happy view

from above, our beauty. We were all young and happy. 
We joked like lazy, overprotected children, who never read
anything, appreciated only the body, and killed for you.

                        translated by Christopher Merrill and the author

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Tomaz Salamun is the author of more than twenty-five books in his native Slovenian. His latest books in English include The four Questions of Melancholy: New and Selected Poems and the forthcoming Feast. contents | previous | next