Venice masks

Friday 2 December 2022

A Postcard from the Underworld - Sinan Antoon

I have never seen the Sun
It does not rise here
My father saw it there before his death
He tells me about it all the time
about its ever burning flames
“Like a candle” he said
lit by the gods
never to be extinguished
like the one I am holding now.
Here
He taught me
how to put these bodies back together
cover them with feathers
so they could roam the darkness
Sometimes an arm or a leg remains
I put it in the corner
and wait for the piles they bring
the next day
I will ask my father about the eye
he hung on the wall a week ago
It is still shedding tears
I wonder if it is longing for its sister
or for the Sun?

Sinan Antoon (born 1967) Iraq

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