Skopelos
William Lythgoe
I sit outside our apartment
holding a glass of ouzo
that glints in the sun.
Across the bay the Old Town
waits for us.
Tonight we’ll stroll
back in time
past the supermarket
past the bus station
past the harbour
where the ferry is unloading
and on towards the white churches
that stretch up the hillside
to the ruined walls of the Venetian castle.
Just past the town hall
we’ll stop
and Melissa will welcome us
into her family’s taverna
facing the sea.
Her brother, Ianos, will take us
into the kitchen, where their mother
dominates the scene.
We’ll see, smell and maybe
taste what’s cooking
and make our choice.
Then sit on blue chairs
at a blue table
and order half a kilo of house wine
and wait
for the goat with plums and onions.
Her husband will stroke his moustache,
warm up his creaking accordion
and two or three of their children
will creep downstairs to listen
as his song expands
into a blue-sounding stew
of shifting semitones and twisting tempos
they call rembetika.
