60 for 60: Apollo in the Defeated Town

By E.R. Pulgar

Apollo in the Defeated Town
(on some lines by Yannos Ritsos)

Edwin Honig

1

The statue's red lips
drip with the spit
of abandoned wives.

Yesterday they curled up
in beds where
the foreign soldier slept

sheets still warm
from those bodies
marching off this morning.

2

Today some dead men passed
draped over wheelbarrows
one preposterously handsome

as if pledged to love
and the women ran after
dresses immodestly torn

hair flying in the wind
grazing the wheelbarrow
all the way to the grave:

3

On the roadside some fell
into the thorny rosebushes
blowing in the sea air.

Having stopped using make-up
their full mouths droop
their black eyes squint

and beauty rises
menacing as a wave
that will never drop.