for a mythology of minor things

bondage in grey, by Komail Aijazuddin

“Writings of light assault the darkness
more prodigious than meteors”
~ Jorge Luis Borges

Like one who wrinkles an old shirt
&
Goes about naked in the old cinemas
Death
Walks with crutches
Through those seconds of light
While
I caress your body
Of an unlit firefly
&
Your face lights up again
In the sphere of smoke
&
We know
That now it is impossible to recognize ourselves
In that cry
Born in the sidewalks

~ Humberto Quino, trans. from Spanish by Jessica Sequeira

Humberto Quino lives in La Paz and is the author of ‘delirio de un fauno en la avenida buenos aires a las 12 & 45’ and ‘diccionario herético’.

Jessica Sequeira is a writer and translator living in Buenos Aires.