From a rectangle cut out of the sky in Balvanera
falls food instead of rain. On Tuesdays, it’s lemon rinds and orange peels.
There can be so many, falling all day long, that the sky turns yellow and
orange and the air smells like freshly squeezed juice. Afterward, the fruit covers
the ground. It begins to rot, and a sickeningly sweet smell arises from the
sticky pulp. On Fridays, egg shells and chicken bones and the left-over fat
from some steaks drop down from above. The trees whip in the wind, the clouds
block out the sun, and the animal remains cannot be seen against the dark sky.
They are heard when they land on the ground: the shells crack into tiny pieces
and the fat absorbs the falling bones. Eventually, the worms and slugs find
homes in the parts of other animals. Lit cigarettes also fall from the sky,
though this happens every day of the week. Their lights blink and then go out
when they reach the earth. The paper slowly disintegrates but the filters never
break apart; they take on the brown colour of the soil and pile up in small
mounds that soon become big mounds.
The Sky
in Balvanera
by Sarah Moses
January
2017
above/ground
press broadside #341
Sarah Moses is a Canadian writer
and translator who divides her time between Toronto and Buenos Aires. Her
translations and interviews have appeared in Brick and Asymptote, and
her poems in the chapbooks as they say
(Socios Fundadores, Buenos Aires, 2016) and Those problems (Proper Tales Press, Cobourg, 2016).
