A Poem

by Anastasia Vassos

Letter from Corinth

Today Katerina took me to the gnarled fig tree
that’s stood on our family land for generations,
showed me the house she was born in.

The corroded hand-crank she brought reached
to the uppermost branches to find
green globes camouflaged by the leaves.

I wish you had seen her torn sundress
exposing her soft white belly flesh
each time she lifted the hook high

careful not to crush the figs, stowing them
in a plastic bag. My Greek was too rusty
to translate the hand-wrought sign peeking

out from time’s burled limbs: she said ΔΗΛΗΤΗΡΙΟ
meansPOISON—in other words: don’t steal.
And then the sun rinsed rose over the mountains,

and shadows thrown by the tree signaled
time to return. We strolled the long way home,
on dusty roads that reminded me

of that road to your house in Thessaloniki.
We talked in the ancient language you taught me
when I was a child, our vowels rounding

the deepening twilight. At home, Katerina
showed me how to eat a fig—I’d been doing it
all wrong, using a knife on a gift meant for hands.

With my fingernails, I peeled back green skin
leaving fleshy white pith intact, and held
this flower as if it were a soft apple.

And then, I bit into seeds that burst
in antique ripeness, words rushing back
as I learned to speak Fig.

March 27, 2026

Anastasia Vassos is the author of Nostos and Nike Adjusting Her Sandal. Her collection Note to Self is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and appear in many print and on-line journals, including Diode, RHINO, Whale Road Review, Comstock Review, and SWWIM. She is a reader for Lily Poetry Review. Her poems about the Greek-American diaspora have been translated into Greek. She speaks three languages and lives in Boston.