Wedding Nuptials in Platania

for Stewart Parker

Walking musicians, sleeves rolled, lighting the place with music,
Moving to the unison of string and bow.
Sweets showered on the girl and boy
Parting the blocked streets of Platania.
Houses coloured like sugared almonds
Stuck on the edge of the mountain.

Precarious jubilation: I, a voyeur,
Trapped in the traffic, dulled and saddened by your dying,
Incredulous and privileged, witnessing
A procession circumambulating the same frieze
For hundreds and thousands of years.

You say, ‘Na sas zeisoun’ – ‘May they live for you’ –
To the parents of the bride and groom.
I searched my head for the sound,
Formed it on my tongue and palate.
A woman – turned eyes
Dark with recollecting and forgetting,
Recognition of a foreign body,
A solitary traveller –
Cut through ‘Na sas zeisoun’ with ‘Fuck you.’