A distinctive knock
on my door.
I pay no attention.
I’m surrounded
by permanent visitors.
They lie on the table,
the floor,
jostling each other
for room,
sprawling shamelessly
resting their bent spines
and broken backs.

The knock gets louder.

I expect no one.
The tiny harbor
circles its bay
like a slack, half-opened mouth
where the only sounds
are the cicada’s drone
and the endless rehearsals
of the sea.
Even the mailman
is under house arrest.

Peevishly, I open the door.

No one’s there.
Only down the street
two white-sheeted nereids

skirt the precipice
of my childhood.

Translation by Robert Zaller