Size / / /

Calved, set adrift, sea-girt,

whether (to name each landmass)

dominant Gena or submissive Peg; sultry Page;

mousy Anne, or even surprisingly Egan,

the little boy in this choir of multiples (although he too

is equally damaged and sings off-key);

under a combination of drugs

and years of psychotherapy,

all the lost continents,

having fractured along faultlines

during an all too seismic

childhood,

begin to uproot themselves, to gather strength

for the trip back out of separation,

reversing the diaspora.

First to achieve substantiality, rising to the surface

like Atlantis reborn, is her core personality,

the black mass of the world she was at age eleven,

when everything fractured.

Puzzle-fitted back into the whole

and eventually assuming authority

over the rest, it's she who now asserts

tectonic control over her various selves.

The result is geopristine—

as if the original skull of the Earth has

reintegrated itself,

its verdant bones no longer separated

by blue chasms of guilt

and self-loathing.

("You made me do what I did," says the message

she finds in the bottle, sent to her by black currents

from the prison beyond the headlands. "No, I didn't,"

counters her healed brain now, echoing the gulls.)

Sutured whole,

the fontanels of who-she-was-before-

the-split fuse together seamlessly,

united once more.

Alone again Pangea rules, and is herself.




Robert Borski works for a consortium of elves repairing shoes in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. You can read more of his work in our archives.
Current Issue
22 Apr 2024

We’d been on holiday at the Shoon Sea only three days when the incident occurred. Dr. Gar had been staying there a few months for medical research and had urged me and my friend Shooshooey to visit.
...
Tu enfiles longuement la chemise des murs,/ tout comme d’autres le font avec la chemise de la mort.
The little monster was not born like a human child, yelling with cold and terror as he left his mother’s womb. He had come to life little by little, on the high, three-legged bench. When his eyes had opened, they met the eyes of the broad-shouldered sculptor, watching them tenderly.
Le petit monstre n’était pas né comme un enfant des hommes, criant de froid et de terreur au sortir du ventre maternel. Il avait pris vie peu à peu, sur la haute selle à trois pieds, et quand ses yeux s’étaient ouverts, ils avaient rencontré ceux du sculpteur aux larges épaules, qui le regardaient tendrement.
We're delighted to welcome Nat Paterson to the blog, to tell us more about his translation of Léopold Chauveau's story 'The Little Monster'/ 'Le Petit Monstre', which appears in our April 2024 issue.
For a long time now you’ve put on the shirt of the walls,/just as others might put on a shroud.
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