George Kalogeris’s most recent book of poems is Winthropos, (Louisiana State University, 2021). He is also the author of Guide to Greece (LSU, 2018), a book of paired poems in translation, Dialogos, and poems based on the notebooks of Albert Camus, Camus: Carnets. His poems and translations have been anthologized in Joining Music with Reason, chosen by Christopher Ricks (Waywiser, 2010). He is the winner of the James Dickey Poetry Prize, the Stephen J. Meringoff Award, and the Sheila Margaret Motton Prize.
It sounds like the name of some Aegean island
With brightly painted doors and painted boats,
And windowsills with flower boxes. O pastel
Harbor mirrored in tourist calendar azure,
And everyone taking their noontime nap! Angina.
Imagine stucco as white as the whitest china.
A donkey with two enormous bushels of wheat
Strapped to its back and drooling goops of saliva.
Angina. It calls for that pill the laborer
Puts under his tongue—his skeptical Greek tongue—
When his face goes pale and his lips turn blue. Angina.
It tightens around his chest like the coils of the Hydra.
Angina. It conjures up my father’s shade
In flannel pajamas, still clutching the kitchen sink.
For once my mother doesn’t wake up in time.
Until the nitro kicks in, I too can’t breathe.
MEDITERRANEAN ANEMIA
My doctor says I have a mild case. It’s caused
By a lack of iron. The symptoms include fatigue,
Paleness, or even a sudden wooziness.
I guess this means I’m prone to swooning. So too,
I cannot call it Thalassemia
Without it leaving a salty taste in my mouth.
It’s in my blood. Of course, you don’t have to be
An aging, anemic Greek to feel lightheaded.
But can it be true that out of the Mediterranean
Blue of an ordinary, desolate day,
The soft warm mouth that took my breath away
A moment ago, belongs to someone back
In the days of my youth? A recollection so real,
My lips tremble. The color drains from my face…
O bloodless shade, along with all the other
Bloodless shades, down there in Hades. As if
I could taste your sweet spontaneous kiss before
It fades, beyond the pale of Thalassemia.
Poetry in this post: © George Kalogeris
Published with the permission of George Kalogeris