On the island,
Every word was a blunt knife
That could sink into the wrong flesh.
The informants multiplied on street corners,
In beds,
In sighs.
You heard footsteps and didn’t know
If it was your shadow or your sentence.
No one trusted anyone.
Silence had a price.
And the voice…
The voice was a luxury of the dead.
Each informant had a quota of betrayals.
If he failed,
He then had to write his own name.
In the end,
Fear tied us to him too.
Bodies disappeared
Like broken branches in a dry river.
Without trial,
Without a grave,
Without return.
As if Thor struck his hammer against hope
And unleashed storms of illuminated death,
Terror shattered the simplest things:
The cup of coffee,
The gesture in the street,
The song you barely remembered.
And fear,
Ah, fear,
Was the homeland.