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Last Prayer of My Body

Your wind is black and white is the night,
and every vein is swollen and ripe.
In this avenue of bodies, stand straight as a sword
before you collapse, blinded by white.

But the dance even then will continue as ever,
with the same mystery, with the same innocence.
And when those grasses cover you in darkness,
the blaze of your thirst will burn them away.

Aco Šopov, Not-Being, 1963
Read the cycle “Prayers of My Body”
Translated by Rawley Grau and Christina E. Kramer, The Long Coming of the Fire, Deep Vellum, 2023