
Ravenous
Larnaca port, a squid glides in glass
transparency.
The crystal sky in a saucepan lid caps the sea.
I sip commanderia, munch halloumi and pastitsios
watch bodies tasting of salt sizzle under parasols
remember the skinny yayas in their long black
dresses
offering an egg and coffee, eyes glinting silver tresses.
Now tourists binge beer, full breakfast, milky teas.
Their waists sag ready to pop like ripe cherries.
On my lap the hazel dove-eyes of a boy look back
from a magazine, his skinny arm picks rice extract
from the side of a dirty cup, as a scummy crust
soup-slop is served in a cauldron, colour of rust.
A girl, bowl outstretched hurls her arm through a railing
upper lip raised, eyes triggered for tears, nostrils flairing.
Sixty hours to ship food from Larnaca, fifteen before.
I sit here and simmer feeling unappeased and sore.
In September almost seventy six thousand tons.
In October five thousand eight hundred tons.
It’s the lowest delivery since the beginning of the war
whose tentacles tighten a grip, on the opposite shore.
Kate Hill-Charalambides
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Kate
Hill-Charalambides would be pleased to hear them