DANIEL BORZUTZKY
EXILE
And soon the city will be an abandoned house, then a
ditch, then a forest. And the forest will be filled with clowns
you will sense but not see. And these clowns, who are you, will
remove your skin inch by inch until you are nothing but
bone. The forest will be empty, and you will be cold,
transparent and alone, which will allow you to keep
living because you will have the presence to explain your
absence, and to know that love is like a cistern full of
little boys laughing at a city of Byzantine
knickknacks on the icy bank of an empty shore where the
lucid salesmen have no words and where the smog shields
the crumbling cliffs on the edge of town near the drive-in
movie theatre that perpetually plays the
drama about the clown who can not go to the ball
unless he wears his big red boots and wig, and gets fat with
the grandeur of knowing himself for what he is not: a
splendid jumble of wit, charm and guile.