I removed one side of the cube
and got a box to keep books or toys in,
I kept my amputated arm in it, my severed head,
and my viscera with wax seals.
I removed two sides of the cube
and here I am with a trailer to stretch my legs into infinity
a lectern without a lecture that I used for
my first steps, my last fall.
I removed three sides of the cube
and it became a table for my elbow,
a personal tunnel for my red flesh,
a gate to the moment I was begotten, a shroud
under which I crawl as if under the grave of life.
Four sides off and it's a shack,
a night-time pyramid, a tent for two,
a sail for a storm, a shelter for death.
I removed five sides of the cube and got a mirror,
a self-portrait, freedom with corrections,
a white pillow, a sheet of black paper.
I watched over the sixth side and caressed it,
sweetie, sweetie I was saying to it,
it was a pretty square with accurate angles of 90ᵒ.
I protected it from everything alien to it,
I hid it from everything that was strange to it,
I became its glass dome, bulletproof glass,
curled up with my arms on the floor
to become one with it,
but instead of being resurrected as a cube
—I broke, exploded, and the cleaner came
and swept the shards up in her dustpan,
wiped out my shadow with a damp cloth
and closed the door. The cube cubed me.
Cube
Translated by Ljubica Arsovska and Peggy Reid
