pedlar from Sidon

at once you knew him for the son of a full-breasted  Aphrodite and of Hermes - Christodoros

the young pedlar comes fro Sidon

unafraid of the storms of Poseidon

his curls crow-black, his chiton purple

fastened at the shoulder with a golden clasp

his body smelling of myrrh and make-up

he enters Cyprus through Famagusta

basks in the sunlight

in the backstreets of Nicosia

in a courtyard a young Turkish girl

trims, with ivory fingers, the creeper 

which sways to and fro to her touch

the pedlar crosses the river of the sun

like a god walking on earth

he sings a song softly as in a dream:

'roses in a silk head-scarf'

as if his crimson lips

long to kiss the sandals of Zeus

thus he walks on

then stops and sits down at a Gothic gate

where the lion of Mark looks down with

wide eyes on a sleeping shepherd

who smells of goats and sweat

the pedlar leans back; his hand

feels inside his shirt and takes out

a small terracotta sculpture

he studies it carefully

a youth, naked and uncertain

slipping between concave Hermes and convex Aphrodite

on a soft bed