Coordinating System - Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska

all people know what the coordinates that I live in are

and what full stops my initials are leaning on

I write my Identification Number on

a payment slip

when I return what was taken from me

And in my health care card I reveal it

when with my consent they extract blood from my words

so they could see whether my leukocytes are all there

I keep it in the bank as well

in front of the eyes of the usurers

so they could see that I have nothing but that number

The postman stops at number 47

and returns the stray words

in the mail box of forgetting.

My friend visits me once a month

to read how many light bulbs

were on in vain last night

My telephone number is made public

on the web page that gives my salary.

My date of birth is impressed on my fingers

and inputs itself

in the empty slots

of electronic bureaucracy

The traffic officer knows exactly

when I am about to go through the city centre

when I am commuting to work

and he always pulls me over

to reprimand me

for entering curves speedily and recklessly

to commend me for following coordinates astutely

but for which – I wouldn’t survive

and then I recall that my hand

had drawn all the lines of the pedestrian crossings

all of the triangles with exclamation marks

and all of the Stop signs at the entrance of main streets

and I go on… moving along on the same coordinates

in foreign systems, with my rules, but I survive

because my life lives in a dream without coordinates

in which I am being born over and over again

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Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska (born 1979) Macedonia

Translated by the author

Source: The High Window