“poem” broadside #341 : “The Sky in Balvanera” by Sarah Moses

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).