Ronny Sommek

I Am the Severed Head You Do Not Know

My hair is more blond than the sand it rolls over

On my lips crowd words

sharp as the knife

that met my throat.

You who are mesmerized by my eyes,

put a chip on the wheel of fortune

that spins under the eyebrows.

Don’t ask my name and imagine my hands

hugging the body that was so beautiful

beneath my neck

and now cast upon the disgrace of the earth

as if it was no more than a banana peel.

The sun shone, the poet wrote,

and I am barely a model of darkness.

No more.

translated by karen alkalay-gut