Seven Hours One Minute
by Olga Zondberg · 01/21/10
yeah, she said, I’m moving after tomorrow
the abandoned paper in which the parquet was wrapped
(how many hitches in a square meter?)
bars whine to be put on the windows
not the regular kind but those made of crystal
or else everything will run
over the curtains in the summer
low ceilings
a tragedy without height
girl cries
but the balloon has nowhere to go
back to back
the weeping cotton bud
warm fur
***
they are almost screaming
one young the other not so much
bald and in a ski hat
with a plastic bag and a briefcase
white and white
because the snow
suvorov and his skeleton
wind seventeen meters
distance time speed
audibility excellent but the memory short
I almost wrote two idiots
audibility. almost
did not say
***
there was a lot of them
but their fear was bigger
someone was given flowers (I wouldn’t have accepted
even if they themselves were overgrown with flowers although
perhaps then I would) educated the children
deriding the education
even more than the children
and so on
I gave myself flowers, she said
because there’s no one
no one gives them to her or no one
meaning, no one to give them to?
why are all my questions so mean
“You should give yourself presents,”
she sings, “A tragic accident.”
“Time, presented to yourself.”—
slogan of the publisher, “Harlequin.”
inundating the city cheap reading
love in a soft cover
dumb as a herd of gray geldings
***
