qarrtsiluni

You can hear them screaming from here. In the dark
their voices are fins suddenly plunging upwards
from the walled garden. These are the rewards
of childhood and first darkness. Here is the bark
of the tree that scratches you. Here is the dead
lane with its berries and the cloud’s mussed head.

Here is the steep, the boiling and the loss
of memory. Most noises are lost in the pitch
of the moment, the yawl of light an ordinary switch
plunges to oblivion. Far off, voices cross
like beams. Someone shudders on the lawn,
retching and rising. They’ll sober up at dawn.

by George Szirtes

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