It must have been one o’clock at night or half past one. A corner in the wine-shop behind the wooden partition: except for the two of us the place completely empty. An oil lamp barely gave it light. The waiter, on duty all day, was sleeping by the door. No one could see us. But anyway, we were already so aroused we’d become incapable of caution. Our clothes half opened—we weren’t wearing much: a divine July was ablaze. Delight of flesh between those half-opened clothes; quick baring of flesh—the vision of it that has crossed twenty-six years and comes to rest now in this poetry.
Reprinted from C. P. CAVAFY: Collected Poems Revised Edition, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, edited by George Savvidis. Translation copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Princeton University Press. For reuse of these translations, please contact Princeton University Press.
The Canon