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Donna J. Gelagotis Lee

__________

Redefinition

An adopted country lends, and demands
a down payment, which is your initiation.

Language rolls on the tongue and slips
into memory. It carries with it

a past new to you.
You believe in the future

because it has not yet come.
All the colors of the country: paint.

The abstraction your reality.
What comes out of your mouth

would have been unrecognizable to you
in your past. A country holds its history out

like a present that cannot be given.
Either you have it or you don’t—

it is your birthright.
What surrounds you now, but a story

of an ancient people’s progress? What
will you claim here? The men take the fish

from the sea. Women turn over the earth
with their bare hands.

You will never be like them.
But you really don’t believe that.

Anything is possible in your re-
definition.

__________

Taverna Row

They press the flat
gold like
a wafer between
their fingers. To be sure
they are worth it. Roped
wrists, necks strung. Rings
holding onto tapered fingers.
From these hands,
puffs of smoke spiral,
each movement deliberate.

The curtain calls,
mesiméri, taverna
row. Children skip
between tables. Lamb chops
raw on the butcher block. Cases
show cut meat, purple eggplant, hard
zucchini, ripe tomatoes, cucumbers,
and plump rounds of lettuce.
The steam of the grill
escapes into the street. Cooks
work late, their wives
in the heat of some other
kitchen. Stray cats mingle
beneath the tables. Roma girls
bring flowers they have wrapped
roadside, their smiles set to sell. From
the boisterous tongues of Greek men,
fat smoke and threads of
meat. Krasí warms
the table. Red smiles
push the corners of their
faces. With glances downward,
they lift themselves.
The waiter maneuvers in.
Plates, forks, knives, spoons, glasses
crash in cacophony, the corner edges
of the tablecloth meeting as though he
were folding a dinner napkin.
The wily sunset.
The unkept promise.

__________

Donna J. Gelagotis Lee is the author of two collections of poetry, Intersection on Neptune (The Poetry Press of Press Americana, 2019), winner of the Prize Americana for Poetry 2018, and On the Altar of Greece (Gival Press, 2006), winner of the 2005 Gival Press Poetry Award. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals internationally, including Cimarron Review, Feminist Studies, The Massachusetts Review, Southern Humanities Review, and Women’s Studies Quarterly. Her website is www.donnajgelagotislee.com.

__________

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