Ai - Mexico, 1940

At noon today, I woke from a nightmare:   

my friend Jacques ran toward me with an ax,   

as I stepped from the train in Alma-Ata.

He was dressed in yellow satin pants and shirt.   

A marigold in winter.

When I held out my arms to embrace him,   

he raised the ax and struck me at the neck,   

my head fell to one side, hanging only by skin.   

A river of sighs poured from the cut.

Ai (1947-2010)

Godzilla in Mexico - Roberto Bolaño

GODZILLA IN MEXICO

Listen carefully, my son: bombs were falling
over Mexico City
but no one even noticed.
The air carried poison through
the streets and open windows.
You'd just finished eating and were watching
cartoons on TV.
I was reading in the bedroom next door
when I realized we were going to die.
Despite the dizziness and nausea I dragged myself
to the kitchen and found you on the floor.
We hugged. You asked what was happening
and I didn’t tell you we were on death’s program
but instead that we were going on a journey,
one more, together, and that you shouldn’t be afraid.
When it left, death didn’t even
close our eyes.
What are we? you asked a week or year later,
ants, bees, wrong numbers
in the big rotten soup of chance?
We’re human beings, my son, almost birds,
public heroes and secrets.

Roberto Bolaño, The Romantic Dogs, Picador, 2011, 160 pp.