I LEFT YOU A MESSAGE Poem by Kiki Dimoula

Hello, hello, can you hear me? Hello?

I'm calling from far away. What?

You can't hear me? Has my distance

discharged? Are you speaking from mobile

space? Press zero again? Again?

Can you hear me now?

Yes, can you please put my mother on?

What number did I call? The Sky —

this is what I was given. She's not there?

Can I scream her a message?

It's very urgent, tell her

I saw in my sleep she died and I

small sobbing child who peed itself

fear-soaked all the way

up and still

not dry.



Tell her to come and change it.



If she can't, tell her please

her old warning ripened, that the old

man would eat me if I didn't

eat.



It ripened. I became

a meal of age. Not in a small dreamy taverna.

In some popular dive now managed

by the mirror.