The Inexpressible
The city was all lit under its evening sky; two fiery
red stars were inexplicably flickering up high.
Windows, the bridge, the roads, taxis, the buses.
“I also had a bicycle,” he said. “I could dream,” he said.
In the room, the woman looked elsewhere, didn’t say
Anything; her dress was ripped on the right side; if
you lifted it slightly, her leaning shoulder would show.
As far as the others, they are not mentioned, he said,
you hide them like broken glasses. When the garbage
collector comes, you take them down alone with
a guilty eagerness, early in the morning, the beautiful
glasses wrapped in old newspapers and carefully not
to hit the railings of the stairs, since they still echo
with a deep, piercing sound, that unbroken sound
tuned to the sound of the windows, the air, the walls.
Then the blind musician, tired, goes back up. He puts
his violin case on the chair. He opens it; two of
the three glasses are in it. They are shining and whole.
Manolis Aligizakis 