Afrizal Malna, translated by Daniel Owen
Published in Brooklyn Rail, Jul 11, 2018
First published in Museum Penghancur Dokumen
ERASER'S GUEST
It's a shame this poem's already been erased when
I go to read it. Like humid air that tugs
at my arm to catch what will fall, is
falling, and falls. What's up with erasing? Glue,
scissors, yarn, make a shadow of barbed
wire. I erase the word erase from the documentation,
out from the barbed wire. Return to glue,
scissors, yarn from every word so as to
hide, lose, and erase once again
the word erase. And a knock
that's never been erased inside a shadow's
death: a guest from a door's shadow that's never
knocked on the door.
Read the full story here.
