Issue 26 | Fall 2020

Testaments from the Departed

I prefer a body 

    to its

    absence. 

Simple things 

last under fire: 

a needle, a knife, 

    a skeleton,  

 

a street without

end, crumbling

    red brick of these

cemetery walls. In the end, 

 

there is no 

    end that we know of, just 

a concept. I’ll

see you some-

    where.  

 

***

 

Translate me

    into clay,

into words,

into light. Enable

lasting. 

Restore hunger to 

    my lips.

All those

    unsaid things—  

a garden

    of lost

thoughts— 

give them

    meaning. 

Translate me

into yourself.  

 

***

 

On the bottom

shelf, 

my shadow. 

 

The middle, 

a mirror

holds my face. 

 

On the top,

a jar 

with my

ashes. 

Room 

 

full

 

of air. 

 

Filed under: Poetry

A Molotkov author headshot

Born in Russia, A. Molotkov moved to the US in 1990 and switched to writing in English in 1993. His poetry collections are The Catalog of Broken Things, Application of Shadows and Synonyms for Silence. Published by Kenyon, Iowa, Antioch, Massachusetts, Atlanta, Bennington and Tampa Reviews, Pif, Volt, 2 River View and many more, Molotkov has received various fiction and poetry awards and an Oregon Literary Fellowship. He co-edits The Inflectionist Review. Please visit him at AMolotkov.com.