Yánnis Kondós
From: The Nothing Athlete (1997)
In the Fray the Mice Will Play
In summer the buildings are crumpled
by shadows, by knife-marks, by the heat.
July in particular seems to shrink them,
make them tiny. People step on them
like rotten fruit. But they retain memory
in their seed. Passers-by kick them
back and forth. Rats run round.
But, with persistence and self-sacrifice, those
buildings sprout back from the asphalt.
They grow until September,
they shoot up to the sky
and are inhabited again,
switching on all their lights,
whistling like riverboats
Translated by Jane Assimakopoulos
Page(s) 30
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