for Jannis Birsner
Wars
have outlasted your
years.
Congratulations on your success
today
in exceeding the life
expectancy
of a giraffe or bat,
cow,
boa constrictor,
or owl.
Around the world, penguins
and pigs,
conceived at the same time as you, are dying.
Saturn
has not circled the sun even
once
since you were a fertilized egg.
Stalker
who guides me along the thousand trails
to the Zone,
another winter begins to crawl,
I bury
my face in your hairless chest.
If I could,
I'd sign a contract
with Lem
or the Strugatsky brothers,
screenwriters
for our days and future nights;
for the soundtrack,
Diamanda Galás bellows
and bleats,
caws and purrs, we fornicate.
I celebrate
the mind beneath your hair,
the penis,
attached to your body, erect.
Somewhere,
a pig, your contemporary,
reaches
the zenith of his rotund
existence,
I wonder, exhausted in sweat, if lovers,
eyelashes
at last united, count sheep
before
sleep, euphoric and pregnant.

Translation: Hilary Kaplan