de Sorin-Mihai Grad / ©2010 Herg Benet Publishers

Surrogate Memory

[translation by Nigel Walker & Alexandra Sârbu of Surogat de amintire]

light was falling and breaking on the ground
where I had spread grass and maize-flour rolls
we were listening to rammstein on the quiet
drinking from half grapefruits
what we had squeezed out of them
and debating the price of vegetables
turnips are more expensive than onions
you told me
I replied something incoherent about the cabbage and the eggplant
strangely, I wasn’t hungry, you went on
about pods which only matter in a group
and then throw them in the soup as fast as you can
and the potato, oh the potato
not stuffed is just an ordinary tuber

 

I want a rabbit, I don’t remember whether I’ve told you
or I’ve only imagined it
you knew about it anyway
you hadn’t read Tom Thumb and I didn’t want
to listen to you anymore
I was hunting pieces of light with my eyes
spiel ein Spiel, mit mir
but you saved yourself with whipper snapper
you began to deserve a seal
well, I hit you with that
a thousand years of peace and still for nothing
why not a zebra or a crayon?
had you asked, you were doomed
I would have told you to you and stirred
other useless words in whatever fell around us
you baptised me with leaves
and I switched to parsley again
how many sheets can you get for a bundle?
on them you should write “think you’ll get away with it?” and randomly deliver them
through mailboxes
it would mean something and
do you to remember the figure-of-eight pretzels we used to eat at school during breaks?
you were the one saying you could eat countless…

 

this is how I think you would have told me about that day
if you hadn’t tried to break nuts with the grenade
we had found in the garden under the radishes

#
published in EgoPHobia #32

translated within the cooperation project EgoPHobiaMTTLC; many thanks to Nigel Walker & Alexandra Sârbu for the translation, to Silvia Bratu for managing the project and to Prof. Lidia Vianu for making it possible

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