Dash out in long steps, grandma, run, don’t turn back, they are there, run, they’re watching you; to the other side, pretend, now pretend, don’t scream, who would help you now if it’s only you they have to play?; ease off that thing inside, be patient, they are only bodies threatening you, guarding you, only bodies squashing and pecking. Like a slave without a master who no more implores you, who has nobody nothing left to pray, be patient and forget; soon the last one will be at bay, finally squeezed, the last one and you’ll be dead. Don’t try to put your legs together, already off, don’t you see?, although they’ve shaken the olive-colored skin of fury, don’t be restless, full of envy little by little nothing’s left, keep yourself in their fingers, stay inert, keep the strangulation ring of nails, and don’t play dead; it’s all the same, it’ll be the same, now I’ll be the substitute, grandma, who expresses herself in your omitted place, who plays your role in my throat.
OFF COURSE
by Ana Arzoumanian
And the other blood which does not course, which ambles in acid of women whose blood does not course. Through the suture of their legs, its sharp stiffness, something mutilated invisible on the sand, on the sand led sea, The sea that swallows ships; on the sand of exile dissolving drinking jars with moles, and the air overcast, concave, shovelfuls in hailed breath, pushing dragging shabby dresses of women whose blood does not run but coarse.