Phaeton

Ece AYHAN

PHAETON

That thing they play on his master's voice gramophone
presumably is the fragile melancholy of her loneliness
as my sister in a phaeton of suicidal black
rides through the streets of deadly infatuations

Intoxicated perhaps she was who had flowers galore
stopping in front of a florist with no flowers
with her Montenegrine pistol wrapped up in tulle
photos of oleander, periwinkles in its window

I who have not attempted suicide in the past three nights wouldn't know
if the ascent to the heavens of a suicidal black phaeton with its horses
might be due to my sister's having chosen to by the periwinkles.

Translated by Suat Karantay