1913issue6online

61 *** lips groping for the mouths of bottles cast into the sea groping to drink their messages mumbling through scribbles, obscure in places, the guttural, whorled gurgle of bubbles painstakingly articulating in polite formulas the crumpled beginnings choking on wild laughter to penetrate the details of the catastrophe the ship sank and the sun shrivelled up and the capsized sea spilled out and we’re here we’re here here we, your surrogate brothers and sisters related by reason, naturally — how else— extraneous reason maybe, extraterrestrial maybe does it make any difference at this degree of amnesia for those who have tasted unearthly bliss we, the very same gelatinous heavenly creatures lost in the uninhabited reinforced concrete jungles standing deathly contorted like undiscovered pseudorangutans on the uncultivated coast of a longed-for Champansee we’re waiting for the signal and dying of thirst here the ink became blurred and through pink and blue jellyfish lenses were seen the washed-out remains of flat impassive faces by Semyon Khanin translated by Kevin M. F. Platt, Julia Bloch and Maya Vinokour

1913issue6online

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