SHELL

I wander aimlessly around the stony city, tired of waiting. Flesh-eating plants hang from windows like tears, flooding the streets. The sun snows without mercy and petrifies everything. There is nobody left. Only Argos, my father's dog, toothless and lame, follows me whimpering. I could build a raft, a skiff. Or shall I climb to the mountain top, and as in my childhood dreams, take a reed and touch the sky? If my father has died, I will find a piece of iron and unearth him.
As a child, when it was pouring down, I went out to be drenched and said that thunder and lightning were signs sent by father. There is nobody left. I will leave, to broaden. Expectation is my hope and my tree.
Odysseus, son of the wind, seed of wolves, I leave these words for you, carved on a pebble from the Shore. In case you return.

I entered, an adopted son, into the mourning heavens and found peace.

Translated by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke