Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
End of the Line
Little tenderness, childhood love stronger than
the adults’
flowing over the adults, up to the sparrows,
the stickers
and to all other simple and endless things.
Everything distant, foggy and irreversible
as if someone else has lived them and I’m left
with only one thing: death.
excerpt
Here he was, starting out with something that is common to all humanity
– making food and eating. And of course, the two great things in Portugal
are language and food. I think it is one of the marks of a great, great culture
that they take those two things and put them at the front of the list. My lessons
in the realities of the world began while I was sitting on that counter,
damn near naked, watching my clothing dry in front of the stove. And it
seemed to be the most natural thing on earth.
Ken’s first lesson in food preparation, although technically precise, was
also enormously romantic. In Francisco’s world, there was no separation
between science and the soul – it all blended into one. To Francisco the
world made sense on a large, universal scale – and though Ken had no
words to explain it at the time, that view of the world made sense to him.
While the salad absorbed a dressing of olive oil, in an old wooden
bowl, Francisco opened a cupboard door and brought out some crusty
rolls, a hunk of cheese and a bottle of Vino Verte. He poured two glasses.
“Salud!”
Ken took his first sip of wine and thought it very fine indeed. Then they
set about devouring the bread, and cheese and salad, eating their entire meal
with their fingers. While they ate, they talked – Francisco in Portuguese and
Ken with a mixture of English and Spanish and the few Portuguese words
he had learned – and they understood each other perfectly.
Manolis Aligizakis 