Malak Mattar, Untitled (detail), 2024, charcoal on paper
The Tobacco Shop Window
Near a bright-lit tobacco shop window
they stood, among many others.
Their glances met, randomly,
and fearing, hesitant, expressed
their flesh’s outlawed desire.
A few anxious, sidewalk steps followed,
until they smiled, and nodded slightly.
And then came the closed coach . . .
the senses drawing in two bodies:
the hands united, and the lips.
Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933) lived in Alexandria and is commonly considered the premier modern Greek poet.
Theoharis Constantine Theoharis is an Associate Professor in the Literature faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Joyce’s Ulysses: An Anatomy of the Soul (U. of North Carolina Press, 1988), and editor of a critical series forthcoming from Harvard University Press. (updated 1990)