just walked through Seleukeia market
just as dusk was starting to fall
a tall youth of perfect beauty
with unquenchable joy in his eyes
with black and perfumed hair
and passers-by stared at him
and each asked each if they knew him
if he were a Syrian Greek, or a stranger
but some who looked more carefully
understood and moved aside
and out of sight beneath the colonnade
among the shadows, out of the evening light
making his way to the quarter that lives
fully at night, offering orgies and pleasures
and all kinds of drunkenness and lust
they would wonder which of Them he was
and for what guilty pleasure
he walked through the streets of Seleukeia
far from those sacred, honoured mansions
One of Their Gods
K P Kavafis
Translation © R J Dent (2009)
R J Dent 