Shining wet, the aphrodisiac prince of fish
hamsi baligi are piled high in baskets.
A horn sounds in the city of enchanters
and musicians – Hadrian’s brass on
the shores near Trebizond’s high towers.
The boisterous bartering, the arguing,
selling, the stall holders’ calls all cease.
A jostling crowd forms round the fishermen.
Surges of shouting and laughter rise again
What brought us here? What keeps us?
Southerly winds, a dish of friendship,
a plate of love, the promise of potency?
Tonight the lights in the bay will flutter
from small fishing boats but you and I
will be testing the legendary magic,
the restoration of our youthful vigour,
savouring ardour with the taste of baligi
on our lips and eyes closed to all but each other.
Rose Macaulay in The Towers of Trebizond (later becoming the Turkish town of Trabzon) writes that Hadrian had a brass model of the popular fish raised on a column outside the city gate as a talisman to attract other fish in to the shore line.