keep your head down, i thought the flowers were dead

Elis Monteverde Burrau

it sounds beautiful to be working with failing media
i want to write this in spit
i want to spit this out (clumsily)
there’s so much love in nervousness
it can seem warm
between the seam of a shadow
almost like denim on denim
but instead of jeans with jeans
a small dart in a heart
(a little pain in a brain)

there’s a recording
i’m four
i ask my dad
what he chooses: bewitched
or dumb dumb
my first and last
ultimatum
i nag
i eat
i never give up and
it’s a shame

*A poem from Röda dagar (Red days), translated from Swedish by Henry Song.

Elis Monteverde Burrau (b. 1992) lives in Stockholm. English translations of his poetry have been published by New York Tyrant Magazine and Interim.
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