WEBVTT

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Here's another longish poem.

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It's set in Athens,
where I lived

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off and on for two decades.

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This probably dates from
about the late '60s.

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The Greek word "γιαγιά"
means "grandmother,"

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or can be used roughly for
any old lady that one knows.

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There's also a passage in
Levantine French, which I'm not

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going to translate
for you because it

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tells of very shameful doings
during Lent, I believe.

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Called After the Fire.

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Everything changes.

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Nothing does.

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I'm back, the doorbell rings,
my heart leaps out of habit,

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but it is only Kleo, how thin,
how old, trying to smile,

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lips chill the fallen dusk.

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She's brought a
cake for tomorrow

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as if tomorrows were
still memorable.

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We sit down in the
freshly painted hall,

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once used for little dinners.

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The smoke cleared on no real
damage yet I'd wanted changes.

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Balcony glassed
in, electric range,

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and wrote to have them
made after the fire.

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Now Kleo's eyes begin to
stream in earnest, tears

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of joy or troubles too, I fear.

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Her old mother has
gone off the deep end.

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From their basement window
the γιαγιά, nearly 90,

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hurls invective at the passing
scene, teabags as well,

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the water bill, an
egg for emphasis.

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A strange car stops outside,
she cackles, "Here's the client.

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Paint your face,
poutána," to her daughter,

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moistening with tears
the shirt she irons.

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Or locks her out on her
return from watering

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with tears my terraced garden.

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I will see tomorrow the
white oleander burst

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from its pot in the rains.

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Nor is darling Panayióti,
Kleo's son, immune.

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Our entire neighborhood now
knows as if they hadn't years

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before that he is a
degenerate, a thieving faggot,

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just as Kleo is a whore.

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I press Kleo's cold hand
and wonder what could

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the poor γιαγιά have done to
deserve this terrible gift

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of hindsight, these visions
that possessed her of a past

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when Kleo really
was a buxom armful

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and Noti cruised the
naval hospital, slim then

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with teased hair.

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Now he must be 40, age
at which degeneration

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takes too much of one's
time and strength and money.

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My eyes brim with past
evenings in this hall--

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gravy-spattered cloth,
candle, minutely guttering

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in the love blinded gaze.

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The wall's original
old fashioned colors,

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cendre de rose,
warm flaking ivory,

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colors last seen as
by that lover's ghost

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stumbling downstairs
wound in a sheet of flame,

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are hidden now
forever but not lost

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beneath this quiet,
sensible light gray.

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Kleo goes on, "the
γιαγιά's warm.

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What can it mean?"

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She who sat blanketed in
mid-July now burns all day,

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eats only sugar having
ascertained poison in whatever

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Kleo cooks.

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"Kill me, there'll be
an autopsy, poutána.

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Matricide, I've seen to that."

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I mention my own mother's
mother's illness,

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querulous temper, lucid shame.

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Kleo says weeping,
"But it's not the same.

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There's nothing wrong
according to the doctor,

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just that she's old and
merciless and warm."

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Next day I visit them.

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Red-eyed Kleo lets me in.

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Beyond her bedclothes
disarrayed,

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the little leaden
oven rosy witch

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fastens her unrecognizing
glare under the lightest line

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that I can spin.

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"It's me, γιαγιά.

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Together let us plumb
depths long dry."

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Getting no further, though,
than Panayióti's anaconda arms.

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"Ah Monsieur Tzim, bon
zour et bon retour!

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Excuse mon déshabillé.

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Toute la nuit z'ai décoré
l'église pour la fête et fait l'amour,

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le prêtre et moi, dans
une alcove derrière la Sainte Imaze.

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Tiens, z'ai un cadeau pour toi,
zoli foulard qui me va pas du tout,

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mais prends le donc,
c'est pas volé--

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ze ne suis plus voleur, seulement volaze!"

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Huge, powerful, bland,
he rolls his Is and Rs.

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Glints of copper
wreath his porcelain

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brow like the old time fuses
here that blow so readily.

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I seem to know that crimson
robe, and on his big fat feet

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my slippers, ruined.

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Still not to complicate
affairs, remembering also

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the gift of thumb-sized
garnet bruises

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he clasped around Aleko's
throat, I beam with gratitude.

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Meanwhile other translated
objects one by one

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keep from hiding, teapot,
towel, transistor.

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Upon the sideboard an
old knee, scissored

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from its glossy tavern scene.

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I know that their arm, too,
flung around my shoulder,

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buckles against a
ruby glass ashtray.

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It strikes me now, as happily it
did not the insurance company,

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that Panayióti caused the fire.

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Kleo's key borrowed
for a rendezvous,

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a cigarette left burning.

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Never mind.

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Life, like the bandit
Somethingopoulos,

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gives to others what
it takes from us.

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Some of those embers
can't be handled yet.

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I mean to ask whose feast it is
today but the room brightens.

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The γιαγιά shrieks
my name, "It's Jimmy.

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He's returned."

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And with that, she
returns to human form.

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The snuffed out candle
ends grow tall and shine,

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dead flames encircle
us, which cannot harm,

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the table spread she
croons, and I am kneeling,

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pressed to her
old burning frame.

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