Deaf Republic by Kaminsky Ilya

Author:Kaminsky, Ilya
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-55597-880-8
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2019-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

Elegy

Six words,

Lord:

please ease

of song

my tongue.

Above Blue Tin Roofs, Deafness

Our boys want a public killing in the sunlit piazza.

They drag a drunk soldier, around his neck a sign:

I ARRESTED THE WOMEN OF VASENKA.

The boys have no idea how to kill a man.

Alfonso signs, I will kill him for a box of oranges.

The boys pay a box of oranges.

He cracks a raw egg in a cup,

smells a trickle of oranges in the snow,

and he tosses the egg down his throat like a vodka shot.

He is washing his hands, he is putting on red

socks, he is putting his tongue where his tooth has been.

The girls spit in the soldier’s mouth.

A pigeon settles on a stop sign, making it sway.

An idiot boy

whispers, Long Live Deafness! and spits at the soldier.

In the center of the piazza

a soldier on his knees begs as townspeople shake their heads, and point at their ears.

Deafness is suspended above blue tin roofs

and copper eaves; deafness

feeds on birches, light posts, hospital roofs, bells;

deafness rests in our men’s chests.

Our girls sign, Start.

Our boys, wet and freckled, cross themselves.

Tomorrow we will be exposed like the thin ribs of dogs

but tonight

we don’t care enough to lie:

Alfonso jumps on the soldier, embraces him, cuts him to the lung.

The soldier flies about the sidewalk.

The town watches the loud animal bones

in their faces and smells the earth.

It is the girls who steal the oranges

and hide them in their shirts.

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