Yórgos Chronás: Small Fish

I'll stay here, said the small fish 

With my one eye stroking the keels and the other 

                calculating the distance down 

The seabed. 

My mouth I'll open and shut like in the glass bowls 

                in central patisseries 

Inarticulate cries I will not make 

I'll sleep forever the stream will take me 

to wake up sometime 

In flames 

in a black viscous liquid tar or petrol 

A provincial port, 

My body, blue sailors 

Copper captains 

Black kitchen utensils will mourn 

Waiters will announce my presence

Children playing under the tables, on Formica surfaces 

Ignorant ones slotting coins in juke boxes 

                in telephone boxes, for hours 

Spouses will love the peace 

Paying for the view with salad and cheese 

                they'll love women 

The drum roll to suit my burial I'll not hear.

Tr. Maria Consta. From Ancient Infants (1980). Many years ago, in a cheap harbourside restaurant in Greece, I ordered fish (such was the option, in full) and got a plate stacked high with small fried fish. "What sort of fish are they?" I asked the waiter. "Little fish!" he replied, and walked off. Now I've found a poem to them.