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| Tomaž Šalamun |
ACQUEDOTTO
I should've been born in Trieste in 1884
on the acquedotto, but it didn't turn out that way.
I remember the three-storied reddish house,
the ground floor with its furnished living room,
my great-grandfather (my father)
nervously studying the stock market reports,
blowing cigar smoke and calculating quickly.
When I was already for months inside my great-
grandmother, there was a family council,
the result of which was the postponement
of my arrival for two generations.
The decision was written down, the sheet stuffed
into an envelope, sealed and sent to an archive in Vienna.
I remember traveling back toward the light
on my belly, and watching an old man
fusing as he measured the shelf, taking another body from the
shelf
and shoving it by the head down the air shaft.
I had the impression I was seven years old,
and that my substitute, my grandfather,
was a bit older, nine or ten.
I was composed. At the same time these events disturbed me.
I remember that for a time I withered,
most likely because of a strong light,
and then my lungs flattened like a bag.
When I reached the proper tonus I fell asleep.
I knew my body was down below,
and in my dream I saw it many times.
It was that of a slow-moving man with mustaches,
a dreamer and banker his whole life.
(Tomaž Šalamun translated by Charles Simic)
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