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.