Бой с тенью. Shadow Box. Зак Муча

      …All things are interrelated. As above, so below. We are fragments of an unutterable whole. Meaning is always in search of itself.

      – Charles Simic, «Street-Corner Theology».

      …Все взаимосвязано. Как наверху, так и внизу. Мы фрагменты неразделимого целого. И смысл жизни всегда в поиске себя.

      Чарльз Симик29, «Теология на углу улицы»

      On my last day of work Donny called

      to say he was not going to make it to his

      psychiatrist appointment even though he

      was only one El stop away.

      The problem, he said, was people thought

      he wanted to push them all off the platform,

      but he knew they, actually, wanted to push

      him in front of one of these express trains

      screaming past the wooden platform

      between locals.

      *

      The upstairs neighbors said their girl

      practices for active shooters in school

      by running into the bathroom and standing

      on the toilet so her shoes aren’t visible

      under the stall door.

      *

      The shell grows, following the laws of sacred

      geometry when left untouched.

      The hive destroyed, the bees followed the queen to

      the trunk of a 1996 Chevy Cavalier.

      The plants in my office curl toward the sun and

      every week I move the chopsticks holding the jade

      upright, struggling to create some order

      during a cancelled hour.

      *

      There’s a yellow-curbed strip of garden outside my window

      where Hector the building engineer took two bunnies from

      an orange bucket and released them into the dirt

      between the sidewalk and the street as he didn’t want

      to soak them while watering.

      A magic trick – I hadn’t noticed him scoop them

      up in the first place.

      *

      After finishing a conspiracy theory poem about how

      the federal government killed a famous athlete’s father

      to protect the price of another historical sports figure’s

      baseball card, I ran into the same man who illuminated

      those links, the racist plots of 3 AM talk radio and the

      manifest class system which keeps the invisible hand

      feeding the devil.

      On the El platform, the man and his girlfriend introduced

      themselves politely in case I had forgotten. I had to prove

      I remembered where they lived after he, released by the state,

      finished his Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity adjudication and

      upon his return to the world, the opulence of the cereal aisle

      provoked a panic attack and a demand to return to the unit.

      Proud we all remembered each others’ names,

      they, somewhat disappointed, told me I should be

      driving a Porsche, not riding the train.

      *

      Anxiety is the gap between the way things are

      and the way we want them to be.

      The tip of the iceberg is the only known quantity

      and all symptoms are an effort

      to keep us alive.

      В последний рабочий день, мне позвонил Донни

      И сказал – не пойдет к психиатру более,

      Хотя тот в остановке от него.

      Они думали, признался Дон мне, что он хотел их сбросить с платформы,

      Но он-то знал, что это они хотели его под поезд оформить.

      Сосед сверху сказал, что их дочь

      Учится при школьной стрельбе не медлить,

      Ходит в душ и в туалет, так,

      Чтобы обувь в щель не заметили.

      Раковина