SCRAMBLER presents
04 | 03.2017
The Perseverance of Sulfur
by Oriette D'Angelo, translated by Jeremy Spencer
I have a house full of asphalt and nickel
a run-down house
where I hear many howls
where there are the saints of my saints of my saints
and the violence is a matter of echoes
I meet crosses and I feel a river
I find spots
dissidents that lifted their guts
beaten
against the floor
caressed
against the floor
190,788 groups of skeletons
190,788 dead friends of dead friends of friends
that yell from the sky
(or who knows from where)
that are music entering the room
190,788 smiles that are no longer
190,788 tombs and burials and earth and wreaths and prayers
I have the perseverance of sulfur
in the grooves of my teeth
the forensic kiss
that alone holds office
the voice of the bribe
/ because it does not grow
I have a country that has hidden so much
that the sea can’t wash away the memory
I do not have a point, suture and paradise
because they say that the stars are born from dust
and we are dust
we are that
which is hidden in the gap
in the crack
I have one hundred and ninety thousand dead friends
one hundred and ninety thousand buried smiles
and a thousand more people
in which I must believe.
—
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