Aliki Caloyeras

Poor ASC in LA
	After Bertolt Brecht*
	
I, Aliki C., come from ancient oceans.
Though my mother took me into town while
still in her womb, I’ll always keep my ocean chill.
	
Yet, I am at home in the asphalt city.
Equipped with every sacrament for dying:
news, tobacco, booze, I doubt, am idle yet content.
	
I am pleasant and sociable with people.
I dress for dinner as is their custom, though I note
their human stink and realize that I stink too.
	
In the morning, I sometimes sit with men.
I look at them happily and tell them: I
am not the sort of woman you’d want to marry.
	
Toward evening, I collect women round me.
We call ourselves ladies as we lie about and say:
Things will be better for us soon, but we never ask when.
	
At sunup, ocean’s gray dawn breaks with gull cries.
That’s when I finish my glass, shed my smoky clothes,
and finally go to sleep to dream of all my worries.
	
We have been living for kicks in rickety homes.
We have hoped for our retrofitted towers
and tenuous antennas to keep us safe.
	
But we know, only the wind will remain in the end.
We know we are only preliminary, and
after us will come—nothing worth mentioning.
	
In the coming earthquakes, I hope to be calm–
I, Aliki C., cast from ancient oceans into
asphalt cities way back when in my mother’s womb.

~~~
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