the blueshift journal

We fell out of translation:

On the wet climb to the keep,

the Pugeot rocketing upward, he told me

you speak like a child: I want, I want,

fingers splayed like ready armies,

trailing purslane on the Roman wall.

Fear translates, but only as fear, without

degrees—the ice cube melting in a swollen

mouth. Mouth pressed to mouth.

Without conditional, no would, or

might have: Need now. I do it. This thing (gesture)

between us made of gestures in air.