For cats in the wild we did the ocelot, lynx and panther
We had to bring a drawing, song or fairy tale
anything to show what we understood
Their jaws can only move vertically
which means they can’t chew
but since they have powerful masseter muscles
it’s easy to hold onto a struggling prey
Once I memorized all that
I found a small box and put a lark
in it, one with a severed larynx,
the most feline thing I could find in the house
I fought hard to pry it from mom’s molars
[Original Greek]
Η τελευταία μου εργασία ήταν στη ζωολογία
Κάναμε για την αγριόγατα, τον οσελότο, τον λύγκα και τον πάνθηρα
Έπρεπε να φέρουμε μια ζωγραφιά, ένα τραγουδάκι, ένα παραμύθι
κάτι τέλος πάντων για να δείξουμε τι καταλάβαμε
Οι σιαγόνες τους μπορούν να κινηθούν μόνο κατακόρυφα
δεν έχουν τη δυνατότητα να μασήσουν αποτελεσματικά
αλλά καθίσταται ευκολότερο για τους ισχυρούς μασητήρες μύες τους
να κρατήσουν το αγωνιζόμενο θήραμα
Αφού τα αποστήθισα όλα αυτά
έβαλα σ’ ένα κουτάκι έναν κορυδαλλό με το κομμένο του λαρύγγι
ό,τι πιο αιλουροειδές δηλαδή βρήκα στο σπίτι
και μάχη έδωσα για να τον βγάλω από τους γομφίους της μαμάς
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 5.
Born in Nevada and raised in California, Don Schofield is a graduate of CSU, Sacramento (MA, 1978) and University of Montana (MFA, 1980). A resident of Greece for many years, he has taught literature and creative writing at American, British, and Greek universities, and traveled extensively throughout Europe, the Middle East, and farther afield. Fluent in Greek, a citizen of both his homeland and his adopted country, he is the editor of the anthology Kindled Terraces: American Poets in Greece (Truman State University Press), and has published six books of poetry in the US.
With family roots from the island of Crete, Niki Chalkiadaki was born in Trikala. She studied Greek literature and linguistics at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, completed a Master’s in Creative Writing at the University of Western Macedonia in Florina, and is currently working on a second Master’s in Performing Arts. In 2013, on my back with fever (Mandragoras, 2012) won the best first book award at the National Symposium of Patra, and was short-listed for the Greek National Award for Poetry. The poems here are from her third collection, little she-cannibals (Mandragoras, 2022), a work, she says in an interview in Greek News Agenda, is a “dive into a tender, terrifying, animalistic and dry space where the boundaries between the real and the imaginary are blurred.”
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