I.
How do we go from one season – to another
one hour – to the next
slow and torturous and continuous
hence the rites of passage
all the ache
mixed with
all the fear
severing before from after

II.
You were crying – the clothes you wore as a child
which constrained you
and which you’d been forced
to part with in order to afterwards
in your new body
fall in love

*From the book “Cicada”, New Directions, 2022. Translated from Greek by Brian Sneeden.