KONSTANTIN FISCHER, HANIA, CRETE

MAYBE ON THE ISLAND OF CRETE

When you arrived nobody cared:

to them you were just a number

whether or not from Libya,

from war-torn Syria or Egypt,

Iraq or Afghanistan.

They would have never imagined

a boy's own story in a Hamam;

or later: your first love – no questions asked –

still within the limits of tradition.

Beyond these limits: your embrace of frangy ideas,

not Kavafis so much or Lord Byron,

but Mary Renault, or worse: Andre Gide,

E. M. Forster, Jean Genet and Cunningham, kus okhto.

When you finally arrived

on a Greek island maybe, or in Italy, or Malta,

when your body washed ashore

to the Europeans you were just a number.

                                                                                                                                                                                 Konstantin Fischer, 2015