Кит Фань. Дельфы

Kit Fan. Delphi

IF
time is heat
travelling
from hot
to cold
when is
the hour
date
location
of my death
?
Would I be
accompanied
?
Someone
holding
my hand
putting a bitter
mint in my
mouth
?
Would
morphine be
administered
?
How cold
could my toes
get before
they fall off
?
Would there
be a setting
sun
?


IF
my severed
head
were to be
frozen
could I still
retrieve
a memory
file
from 24th
August 2017
the swim I had
with Hugh
by the harbour
in Trani and
the Michelin-
starred dinner
that followed
?
Would it be
possible to
relish
the handmade
tagliatelle with
langoustines
again
?
Or the risotto
nero
?
How much
would the
access
cost
?


IF
I were to be
cast away
in the river
of blood
in the Seventh
Circle with
the citizens
of Sodom
and Gomorrah
would my
husband
be there
?
What
equipment
if any could
withstand
the barren
plain
of sand ignited
by the flakes
of fire
?
Would
the guards
take bribes
?
Would the fact
that we were
both decent
swimmers
help
?


IF
against the
odds I were
reincarnated
as a Japanese
maple
Higasayama
what would
stop me
from being
turned into
a bonsai tree
?
And IF
I cohabited
well with
the aphids
and bull-
finches
would I be
personified
in the next
cycle
?
What sins
should I
accumulate
to avoid being
human
again
?


IF
in the end
there is
nothingness
not even
the ink
and the clouds
would nothing
then be left
of me
?
What would
happen
to the books
I read
and the books
I wrote
?
Would
the memory
of the pages
I loved and
the memory
of my pages
loved by
others
fade away
equally
in the light-
years of
reading
?


IF
what you told
Oribasius
is true and
the speaking
water
has been
silenced
why are the
seas rising
?
Why do we
have more
kings
with splendid
halls
sprouting
high from
the ground
?
And IF
Phoebus
has lost
his house and
the laurel’s
tongue
is cut
why am I
here
?
What are
the words
that can never
be
silenced
?


*
В книге The Ink Cloud Reader текст размещён на развороте в 6 столбцов, что соответствует 6 колоннам, оставшимся от храма Аполлона в Дельфах — прим. перев.