In The Name of the Goddess I Summon You
Oil on limbs
perhaps a rancid smell
like here on the oil-press
of the small church
on the rough pores
of the stopped stone.
Oil on the hair
crowned with rope,
and perhaps other perfumes
that we didn’t know
poor and rich
and statuettes offering
small breasts to the fingers.
Oil in the sun
the leaves shivered
when the foreigner stopped
and silence got heavy
between the knees.
The coins fell;
‘In the name of the Goddess I summon you…’
Oil on the shoulders
and the flexing waist
gray legs on the grass, and this wound in the sun
as the bell chimed for vespers
as I spoke in the courtyard
with a crippled man.
Kouklia, Nov `53
Manolis Aligizakis 