No-Man's-Land
The waitress with warning eyes
her smile a purring cat, serves coffee.
An old man strokes his komboloi
the sun is a blood orange.
Banana leaves mouth the name:
Ledra Street where in the palm of Nicosia
my steps crush the copper bracts
of bougainvilleas, I notice the white of a taper
then cross into no-man’s-land.
Years have fled leaving the dead
in streets spooked with martyrdom.
Shuttered windows; shattered roofs
the cats skinny and stressed
in a silence of neglect.
My mind fixes a broken bouzouki
remembers a sunken cord of rebetiko.
I hold on to it, a little bit of Aunt Katina’s kitchen
whose great iced cookies
have crumbled into the mouth of conciliation,
and with it her icon’s miraculous healing.
The Virgin’s tears dried in the heat of the firing,
I near the sandbags and barbed wire that trail
stations of a cross, that banishes laughter:
a crown of rusty thorns at the frontier.
Kate Hill-Charalambides is an English teacher of dual nationality who lives in Alsace. She has worked for an association against human trafficking which is recognized as being of public utility. Her poetry focuses on human rights, spirituality and feminism. Her poetry has appeared in DREICH 3 SEASON 9 (No.99), SNAKESKIN, Cerasus Poetry ; Piker Press and The Dawn Treader.
Amethyst Review 