Agios Markos

14th August 2019

I heard someone’s heart break last night – in Italian. 

I didn’t understand a word, but I understood the pain.

She sobbed and choked and turned her heart into syllables of agony with a rhythm and beat of emotion as she drew breath and again sent out words from a well of grief.

In the middle of the night, no other sound, but her phone call of despair.

Like an Italian aria, whose words you don’t know but  understand completely.

After a long time, she calmed and the gaps between the sobs were longer and I fell back to sleep.

Next morning someone threw a cigarette butt down from the balcony above. 

I called up from my garden and the voice that came back was the voice from the night before – ‘sorry’.

She was with friends, she was having a cigarette. She was okay.