My soul, my shadow, the dreams I stare into the night are wounded.
I kiss my mirror-self. The lips with which I bite are wounded.
I am a year filled with venom, every season
is autumn: leaf-filled evenings, the snaking twilight are wounded.
The signs of the stars – my Scorpio, my Libra,
Sagittarius pierced by his own arrow’s flight – are wounded.
The snorting bull, on whose proud horns the Earth is caught,
is heartsick. His heart, my heart, breaking at our plight, are wounded.
I have no country, no land, not even a room
the size of a grave. No sky. Centuries of starlight are wounded.
My father gives me food/ gave me water: childhood’s
homework. Beneath dust and blood, the pages are white, are wounded.
We are creatures without self, senses numbed by loss,
spirits broken. Our passions – sweet appetite – are wounded.
Our stories haemorrhage life’s pain from start to end:
my name, religion, memories, the words I write are wounded.
