Philoctetes (excerpt)

Torchbearers run in the night; the torches turn the streets

golden.

For a moment the statues of the gods turn white, open

light-flooded doors in gigantic walls. Then the shadow

of their stony hands falls and darkens the road.

No one can distinguish one thing from another. One night

I witnessed a delirious crowd who raised a man

on their shoulders and exulted him. A torch fell on him.

His hair caught fire. Yet he didn’t yell.

He was already dead. The crowd dispersed. The evening

was left in solitude, crowned by the golden leaves of the stars.

I think the choice was unattainable; and choose between what?

I remember, as a child, hearing the loud voices of foreigners

coming from the guesthouses, just before they went to sleep,

the time they’d get undressed — and surely, at that time

they’d forget of battle plans, struggles and ambitions

sensual in their nakedness, erotic and innocent as they touched,

by chance, their own breasts and they lingered at the edge

of the bed with spread thighs letting their warmed up hands

between their knees until they’d finish the short, joyous tale

embellished by their laughter and the creaking of their beds.

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