Archive > Vol. 18 no. 1

D. Nurkse

Block Of Dim Lamps

At the end of my life I went down into the street to fight. No more seeing through another’s eyes! No more shame, guilt, scruples, complicity.

There he strutted, the enemy, a child really, the sides of his head shaved, brown shirt with the double-eight insignia, steel-toed Doc Martens, and I an old man with a paunch and sour breath—a crowd formed at a knowing distance, we began circling each other, hatred held us like a mother’s arms, we mouthed each other’s names, night was falling, a siren peaked and dwindled, he countered each of my steps, every breath, every synapse was footwork, faintly I heard a voice in the crowd taking bets, a voice saying, keep your dukes up, Old Stuff! Now!

Now my enemy is moving swiftly, as if to the inside of the air, like a carpenter about to make a cut, or one famished sitting down to a meal. Is he myself as a child? Am I him grown old? The crowd Oh

Who had the Glock, who fired, who runs this dark road?