Right of Passage

by Panos Panagiotopoulos

At night, they gather at the docks,
men married to the dawn,
they sweat ire underneath shirts
filled with holes.

A guy I see for the first time
rolls a cigarette under heavy rain,
the paper becomes one with his lips
as he tries to light it.
His eyes belong to a boy,
still flirting with shadows behind
40-ton containers.
His eyes match my own,
a boy's eyes.
He smiles.

But no one laughs,
not these iron-mouthed men,
men that sweat curses against
the stars and the night,

underneath shirts filled with holes
looking like jagged windows
on an ochre painted house,
like one of those overlooking the Aegean sea,
on an island,
where it never rains.