Tremors

written by: Aurora Kastanias

@aurora.kastanias

Trembling he entered the bar with a cheerful smile,
In a dark green suit and a Panama hat.
Sun-dried wrinkles on his face and hands
Dotted with brown liver spots, passage of time.

Buttons of his white shirt open to the trunk,
Roman summer at last, a little too scorching for some.
Cherry angiomas glittery red,
Dilated blood vessels showing off his chest.

New freckles he never had and not to be
Confused with his only solitary mole,
Stuck on his lower chapped pale lip
As he shivers struggling to raise his coffee cup,
To the mouth with both hands for just one sip.

In silence he dribbles and drools succeeding to gulp
Down the last drop, asking for the check
In a broken deep voice, one that has smoked a cigarette
Too many, scratching his drinker’s nose as he wobbles
To the cashier.

Paid and ready to proceed, his wallet refuses to fit
Back into his rear pocket.
The frustrating challenge a matter of patience,
To which he inevitably renounces as he surrenders to hold
On to it, while he waves his goodbyes to the bartender.

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Aurora Kastanias

Born from a Greek, British, Ghanaian father and a Persian mother, I grew up in Rome, where my parents fled to during the Iranian Revolution. The passion for the art of writing led me to earn a Baccalaureate in Literature, being ever since influenced by French 17th and 18th century authors.
While studying for my BA in Business Administration, at an American University in Rome, I further got enchanted by 19th century existential authors as well as European ‘absurdism’ and the Theatre of the Absurd.
It was only after my MBA that I started writing more seriously, giving space to my true passions. In recent years I have written two existential novels in Italian. In recent months I have started studing astrophysics and writing poems in english, which finally brings me here.