share


The Last Life

From a past life I am warning you that I have come
into my grand unified theory. My cheeks are swollen,
my tongue changed, I know every dirty bruise on me
hides a windrose or hydrangea. The latest moon outlives
us. I have faith in its flood of electrical slogans. I dreamt
the bodies irradiated that terminal hall like a few violets
in the mud; via the glass, the violent view, a military jet
blooms its buds. I did not mind so much the dreaming,
and yet I still desired to make my way over, to cross in
to your threshold. Under the departure screen I slept so
the numbers would not see me. I was just an avatar
in the prayer room resting or resurrecting. Who still
remembers the Nabateans? The queue was over. After
the drones, life after life, the heritages were in danger.
I folded myself with the headlines so that I would have
nothing to declare. Believe me when I tell you this:

 

> I was not going to kill anybody / I was undecided / I pressed the buttons
to check myself in / I lived it / I escaped it


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in PBS Bulletin, Ambit, amberflora and The Willowherb Review. He was the winner of the 2017 Poetry Book Society Student Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the inaugural Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize. He is currently a postgraduate student in Edinburgh, Scotland.

READ NEXT

fiction

January 2014

The Dispossessed

Szilárd Borbély

TR. Ottilie Mulzet

fiction

January 2014

The Dispossessed is Szilárd Borbély’s first novel, although he has been active – and widely acclaimed – as a poet,...

fiction

September 2014

The Fringe of Reality

Antoine Volodine

TR. Jeffrey Zuckerman

fiction

September 2014

Many thanks to those who have allowed me to speak; now I’ll do so.   I’m actually not talking...

feature

January 2016

Suite

Pierre Senges

TR. Jacob Siefring

feature

January 2016

‘Suite’ was born of an invitation Pierre Senges received to contribute to an anthology on the future of the novel (Devenirs...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required