If
Had you left at the appropriate moment
you wouldn’t need so many pretexts later on
so much humiliation and indignity By the entrance
two pails tipped over The wet shoes
hidden under the bed Ashes
glasses mourning announcements You never learned
the purpose and what the difference was Searching
you postponed you always postponed Perhaps
even that was one way like the cigarettes
like the glance behind the curtain at the hour
when three naked women multiplied in the sky
with their white arms behind their hair –
and you to carry on your stay here
between two completely unlike statues
that both resemble you – one
painted completely red and the other black
Hellenic Canadian Literature 