20 OCTOBER 2007, Page 41

The Cure

(After Yannis Ritsos) Although the fever had left him months before, he kept to his bed: the invalid, his room a swelter of sweat and booze and that meaty smell from the hide draped on the floor.

The creature had been skinned alive, he said; the underside of the pelt still carried the pain and sometimes, at night, you could see its hackles rise.

Once he dreamed that he got out of bed and stood astride the thing. It made a back to carry him out of his sick room into the hall, then breakneck through the kitchen, through the yard, and down the street to the sound of whistles and drums.

David Harsent