An Attempt at Genealogy

Where am I from?

In black basilicas

dragged incessantly

down a cross

is a man

who here resembles

a dress

snatched from a hanger,

there: thick clouds of muscles — 

an overcast body — 

embodied weather

of one hardly-known country.

(A country where I am from?)

Dragging him,

they stick their hands under his armpits.

How cozy their hands are

in such a warm place!

Through a cut in his chest

Eve watches

with her one bloody eye.

Of a cut in the chest — a red eyelash!

But

where am I from?

2

Yes, a man

resembles

a dress

snatched from a hanger.

Inside black

alphabet

dragged incessantly down

each letter

is a man.

3

To a telephone in a long hallway

as if to a well for water.

(Well, where am I from?)

(Neither mama’s

nor papa’s,

my round face

takes after

a rotary phone.)

A rotary phone is my gene pool.

My body rings as it runs

to put my head

on the strong shoulder of the receiver.

Blood is talking! Blood connection is weak.

Inside the receiver I hear crackle

as if fire were calling.

Who is this?

It’s me, fire receiver.

But where am I from?

4

Days of merciless snow behind the kitchen window — 

snow got deposited like fat under our skin.

How large we’ve grown on those days!

So much time spent at the kitchen table

trying to decide where to put commas

in sentences about made-up lives,

yet no one bothered to tell us

that words, uttered once,

crowd in the brain like in a hospital lobby.

That time is supposed to heal

only because once

it was seen with a scalpel in its hands.

You’ve made a mistake, you’d say mysteriously,

pointing at lines written by a child. Think

of another word with the same root.

As if words can have roots.

As if words didn’t come from darkness,

cat-in-the-bag words,

as if our human roots were already

known to us.

Here’s Grammar, here’s Orthography,

here’s a paper rag “bread, milk, butter.”

What roots? What morphology? What rules

of subjugation? How is it even possible

to make a mistake? Here’s Physics, Chemistry,

Geometry with its atlas, now,

where are Vaclav’s letters,

1946?

What to do about the etymology of us?

Our etymology?

1946 crowds my hospital lobby.

The face of a rotary phone,

the face of a clock,

the face of a radio on the wall — 

these are my

round-faced

progenitors.

But Vaclav’s face — 

where?

(Again a man

resembles

a dress snatched from a hanger.)

And where are the letters? One

per week, in his best Sunday

handwriting?

Inside the receiver — fire.

(How cozy are my ears in such a warm place!)

But where am I from?

5

A postwar city, barracks — 

the joy of a first apartment — 

a coat, a jacket, a leather purse

fat with pills, but where are

the where-letters

from the where-face?

Evacuated face,

de-evacuated face,

sick not sick, stuck through face,

vacuum face,

lab rat face.

This country was tested on Vaclav’s face.

Now we can live in peace.

So,

where am I from?

A postwar city, barracks — 

the joy

of a deactivated face,

vacated face.

A face snatched from a hanger.

Absence as an inner organ.

6

In a village known for a large puddle

where all children fall between the two categories

of those who hurt the living things

and those who hurt the nonliving things,

in a village known

for being unknown

(where am I from?),

a graveyard around an old church,

the frightening alphabet

around the village,

an alphabet on gravestones,

marble letters under the moth-eaten snow.

Under the moth-eaten snow

my motherland has good bones.

7

My motherland rattles its bone-keys.

A bone is a key to my motherland.

8

My motherland rattles its bone-keys.

Eve watches with her one red eyelash.

Under the moth-eaten snow

my motherland has good bones.

In my motherland people kneel before wells.

In my motherland people pray to the crosses of flying birds.

A bone is a key to my people.

Among my people, only the dead

have human faces.

Still,

where am I from?

9

Women saints in berets of golden threads,

who are they by your feet, seated like pets?

An angel with wings of a peacock,

an angel with a human face.

But

who are they by your feet,

seated like pets?

Now, if you wear such golden berets,

if you tame children and angels,

if your white boneless fingers leaf through a book

while I gnaw

on this wooden verse,

would you, holy women who wear golden berets,

put the hairs on my tongue

into a pigtail?

10

A mouse-tail of a word for a word-loving rodent!

Inside my alphabet

dragged incessantly down

each frightening letter

is a man.

My frightening alphabet in his best Sunday

handwriting.

A letter addressed to lost letters,

phone-face, clock-face, radio-face —

face as an inner organ.

Where are Vaclav’s letters

as an inner organ.

On the borderlines of my motherland

— wet laundry claps in the wind like gunfire.

Have you heard of my motherland?

My motherland is a raw yolk inside a Fabergé egg.

This yolk is what gives gold its color.

This face is a fire-receiver.

This face is an inner organ.

A bone as a key to my people.

Where am I from?

11

The golden bones of my motherland are ringing!