Maurya Simon
Rome, October 382 B.C.
I mill around.
I spill my thoughts.
I spool them up again.
I dream of wheelbarrows
bearing pyramids
of entrails.
I set fires:
to the damask curtains,
to locks of Silla’s hair.
I cannot eat—
I scald my hands,
uproot the garden.
A dead mouse
paralyzes my will.
I shred my veils,
and collect aphids
in a broken conch.
I bury that.
I retch on emptiness,
sadness my
sanctum sanctorum
How to go on?
How not to?
I could drown,
am drowning,
drenched in dross.
Or is this drought?
I’m lost: a zero
minus its circumference.
My thoughts zigzag
back and forth
from this void to
the one beyond.
I am lost, lost—
barely a gloss
on sorrow’s map.
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