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You will be always darad You will be always half-blind

/////: Today the clouds ooze forward, flowing like suspended oil Their tops limn with cold bronze; their undersides bruise violet-yelloith unspilt snow Look—I will share with you raphic In cypher is safety These are Ice Eels Speaking Forbidden Words I like them but they make me sad Their feathery fronds reach out to me, chill my hands, even down here

I had a lover once We never married; er inherent to the to other Districts or off-air reconnaissance zones, one half of the two must remain at home The Ossuary believes this reduces the likelihood of membership in subversive clubs, public assembly, defection, undue attachment and suicides But those are all suicidal acts, in the end

My lover’s name was Pyotr Duda He had a son by another woman I never found out what happened to her Pyotr annet stuffed with plums for me when Melancholy Horseheads rolled in—that was his phrase I can share it because he is dead now Horseheads pricked hiy, made him hopeful He took the bird out of the oven and said:

“Bya, you’ve lost three buttons on that shirt Also the radio says Yellow District will have a high concentration of tigers tonight”

We did We heard their vast paws slapping the claloom Sometimes they would stop in front of a house and roar Someone always let them in

I know the word for a group of tigers was once a streak But that isn’t right at all It’s a concentration of tigers It can only be that

In Aerograd, e er

Fourth: The folloords have been excised from the official dialect and may not be used within city lie, but there are reasons for everything in Aerograd

Land, union, suent, before, below, beyond, else, desire, revolution, Rose District

There are others But we have forgotten the up like weeds and must be cut down

/////: I have had the feeling for so I cannot speak about things that happened to ed completely

I will give you an example

When I think of my father, I want to call him by his name, which I knoas András Jandza I want to talk about his collection of extrereen and brass and punctured glass, as though they , some sense of yaw and pitch I want to saythe s the smoke enter the vapor and push it aside, just for a h it never were (Clouds That Smoke Back)

But I find I cannot say the word altimeter I cannot say smoke I cannot even say my father’s name In the cypher I can indicate thestroms I still know those words, and what they speak of But I cannot make ing on aas My father should be referred to only as redacted