An excerpt from
Saracen Island: The Poems of Andreas Karavis
by David Solway
6
I am the one who speaks,
a voice become your voice
as you read, aloud or silently,
tracing a course with your finger.
Yet I am spoken by another
whose voice I cannot hear,
whose recitation escapes me,
whose language is adrift
in dark uncharted waters
even the shark and dogfish avoid.
I am the channel
between one I cannot hear
and one I cannot see.
I am the exile
in the desolate margins,
the sentinel on the coast.
I stand by the broken jetty.
The sun turns me to salt.