Maybe

Miłosz Biedrzycki

Dry twigs, thorns, maybe old cardboard: kindling. Today the sky spreading from the east was ostentatiously empty. I imagined that there were Mexican cactuses scattered all along the road. But there were no cactuses. I didn’t even have a striking surface to light a fire, should the need arise. Perhaps I love you more than I like you, I don’t quite know how you can like the sharp and pointy parts that cut me to ribbons from within. Or put another way: I like and respect you, but I’d have to survive some spiritual slip of the tongue before I’d trust you again. Which I obviously go with, since I’ll trust you now and forevermore. So much of this dust has gotten into the air filter: it was supposed to be off-white, like the wall, but it’s ashen, like the skin of an elephant keeping to itself, wholly in the pounding of a hidden sea.