What's Left of the Night by Ersi Sotiropoulos

Author:Ersi Sotiropoulos
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939931658
Publisher: New Vessel Press
Published: 2018-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

When they saw Patroclus dead,

once so strong, noble, and young,

the horses of Achilles flung

their lovely manes and cried in dread;

Dead, dread, young, flung. It didn’t sound bad, on the contrary it had a nice ring, and that was what worried him. It was too easy, a gentle gliding that might tarnish the lines that followed. He needed to reexamine that rhyme. And to rethink the placement in time. How the action began before the poem itself, and how the shared perspective of the two poems evoked some eye external to both, which pulled them into its field of vision, whose limits they couldn’t exceed. Yet constraint wasn’t necessarily negative. On the contrary, it provided a backbone for lines that might otherwise seem disjointed. For now, though, he was concerned with something else: Was human fate, the human condition, at the core of both poems?

Once they were in the carriage, John leaned toward him:

“Earlier today I got confused. I thought tomorrow was Pavlos’s name day and that we’d forgotten to write.”

“We’ll be home by then.”

“My best wishes, in advance,” Mardaras interjected, having overheard. He started to explain to Madame what a name day was, that in Greece it was more important than a birthday, and so on and so forth, facts of which she was apparently already aware, since she cut him off and turned to ask something of John.

John said that it used to be a major celebration in their house. Visitors came and went all day long. After all, it wasn’t only Pavlos’s name day, but their father’s, as well, and that of the family’s second son, Petros—both of whom were now dead.

“My condolences,” said Mardaras.

From best wishes to condolences in an instant. Was that how poetry worked, too? Was a poem supposed to be a condensation of the circle of life? To reflect that circle? Seen each time from a different perspective, illuminating another shard of a shattered mirror. Did a poem have to express that to be successful?

In the end they had come to a different neighborhood altogether, somewhere near Place de Clichy, on a side street with low houses and sagging, moss-covered roofs.

A cow’s head hung outside the entrance to the restaurant. Mardaras went in first to make sure a table was ready for them. He came back out displeased. The establishment was not suitable for ladies.

“I assure you, I am in no need of a chaperone,” Madame said and stepped forward to enter, then turned around again, saying she knew of a much better place, rather odd, almost repellant, and not exactly a restaurant.

Up to that point Mardaras had displayed only his worldly, elegant side. Just then he seemed suddenly to remember his other identity, as homme de lettres, bohemian, or perfect puriste, depending on circumstances, and he tried to recover that side of his persona with a toss of his sheep-like head, exclaiming:

“Delightful! We’ll follow you anywhere you like, to wherever this fascinating place may be hiding.” He made an ostentatious gesture intended to

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