the shirt of water

I inhabit a word
I moved in with my weapons, possessions and sins
ignoring my parents’ advice:
don’t build a house with a staircase to heaven
don’t lie to yourself
when loneliness forsakes you for a brief fling
don’t yearn for anyone else’s illusions
and never never fall in love
with your own word, the sinful soul

this space is narrow
we can feel each other’s breath—
air-vowels, earth-consonants
I pay my bills when due
and turn off the lights after every syllable
I’d consider myself a lucky tenant
except that night after night my dreams grow louder
and force me to face the unspoken
which can no longer be shut away in my extravagant shelter

then my own word occupies me like a ghost
he slips his treacherous tongue inside my unwritten pages
though enslaved, he wants me to obey only him
as my master—
the lead tips of whips crack at the world’s end

I live in a word as in a shirt of water
at its seams I feign freedom
chewed-up metaphors glued to my eyelids
my master tastes his own weakness
on the tip of his tongue

 

Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Carmen Firan. Copyright © Carmen Firan