The proximity of death
adds to life
the bitterness of the grapefruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blind fortuities
fumble their claws in the fog,
gripping this man or that woman, –
this girl with hair the color of a nylon broom,
or this old man whose face resembles
the face of a lizard basking in the sun –
they catch one, two, dozens, entire nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not because they are evil or malicious, but out of curiosity,
like a child who has caught a beetle with his fingers
and now tears its legs off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They grab people by the collar,
or pull their hair,
or pull their hands,
and you understand
that the place we call “life”
is not safe at all,
and isn’t well-suited for life.
And you long for some place
where at dawn, mountain tops grow into
the cosmic silence
like stone flowers \u2013
where you can feel yourself part of eternity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But
the most horrifying thing is how silently the claws move,
passing over your head without a sound
or nearly touching
your sleeve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then,
all of a sudden,
you feel in your mouth
the slightest bitterness of the grapefruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sergey Gerasimov lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine. His writings span the gamut from philosophical poetry to surrealism and tongue-in-cheek fantasy. His stories have appeared in Adbusters, Clarkesworld Magazine, Strange Horizons, and other venues. Also, he is the author of several novels and more than a hundred short stories published mostly in Russian. Translator of Russian poetry and prose.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/charles-gfHHeBsAWVQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1750&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":394,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions\/394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}