He drills through the rock, drills through the day

in a vertical line in his sleep

Woodpecker's beak or pickaxe

he located my grave

digs with regular incisive blows

spits on his sore palms

stops to catch his breath, pants

This man keeps a forge in his chest

why this determination to unearth me

when real gods proliferate underground

crippled, one-armed, disfigured, all they want is to climb back on their pedestals

Pickaxe, shovel, chisel, brush

he changes tools the closer he comes to me and the sun turns its back on him

rubble and dust brushed away

with his two hands he gently parts the earth

like the sex of a prepubescent girl

He is terrified of scratching me

of cracking my body turned stony with so much silence

Pickaxe, chisel, shovels put down

he speaks to me through silica, sand, pebbles, recalcitrant roots

urges me to emerge before nightfall, before the wolves

the real owners of this island

What does this man who speaks with his tools want of me?

His hands cry out when his mouth is silent

he is not a grave robber or a looter of tombs he is searching for amulets and buried statues

Last call for the boat back to the mainland

he won't leave before he has freed me

from my coat of stone

a silence four thousand five hundred years long beside a dead queen, buried with her jewels

silence crossed by an earthquake a thousand years later

Santorini, Delos, Chios, Syros lifted by the sea

crumbled like a poor man's bread

given to the fire to eat

Dried between two layers of earth I felt all the noise but pretended not to hear […]