Excerpt XXXVI

We gathered mounts of cotton, sealed wall cracks,

mouths, ears, nostrils, eyes;

we were prepared for death from the beginning; we were

listening to the wood ant eater gnawing on the wood

of the small icon;

we were listening to the spiders sauntering on empty

soda bottles piled in the washrooms; we felt the thin

moon hovering over the deserted city, like a lemon

wedge in a cup of warm tea.

I can’t pretend to be dead, he said; it doesn’t console

me; I insist to say a tiny reversible truth. I want, I don’t

want; I want life; I want to leave my mark on the stone

I stepped, on the table I cried, on the beaks of birds that

stole my glances.

I vanish, I adjust myself; my socks lose shape, fall off;

I stop at the marketplace, I pull them up; the driver

of the truck, overloaded with barrels, honks; Oh God,

oh Lord, I wish I could fit in the real void of a white

soft eraser and a strange uniformed pencil —

we searched

for the void a lot, we believed in it, I said; then again, with

the first thrust of the bayonet, we heard it coming out

of us leaving behind the lonely unachievable.

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