The Executioner
Grunts were heard from the dens, a mad person
was looking at me from the window, a bird was
sitting on the huge bulb of his eye, a bird he had
buried, as a child, in the edge of the garden;
the woman with the covered face was following
my way, that ugly, dump woman with whom
I slept once; after she died she often visited me
in fact I saw her once unfolding the small carpet
over where I kneeled so people would feel sorry
for me; it was when he took me in, the one with
the small garden at the far side of the back yard;
when we knocked the executioner opened,
“I’m innocent” he said, “this killed them; it’s not
my fault the others couldn’t hear it” and he pointed
at the flute on the table;
the dead cried and leaned on the fireplace, even
if others said it was the rain, my aunt started yelling
when they tried to take her childish drawing which
she still held in front of the Lord during the Last
Judgment Day,
while, as evening came, the passing musicians
played tirelessly at the street corner although
no sound was heard since their violins were already
faraway in the unrealized.
Manolis Aligizakis 