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the archive(s):
issue no. 5:
The Irreconciliable / Sarah Chiddy
The Russians (he tells me, passing me a stone)
destroyed their cities when Napoleon stormed through,
and again a hundred and twenty years later when Hitler joined
the pages of their history, as yet another unsuccessful conqueror.
The Russians (he passes me another)
released their convicts,
threw open the doors to their prisons in the name of this something greater
and told the rapists
and the murders
to burn Moscow to the ground,
leaving nothing for the Hitlers and the Napoleons but earth that hissed as snow fell.
And so, the rapist became the rabbi
the murder the minister
administering the last rites of fire
to a hopeless city,
transforming it, as last rites always do.
God speaks in whispered flame (his breath is musty)
and Jesus is coming back to baptize us in fire.
He tells me all this at night, as we stand trapped together in the amber of a moment,
alone, beside each other,
leaning on the icy railing of a white bridge covered in grey snow on a black night over
a frozen, colourless river.
He stares over the ice;
his eyes glaze as he gazes at the solid liquid patterned with crystal powder, and his voice is hushed as snowfall:
he walks on the ground
and the earth comes up
and cups each of his feet.
Gravity doesn't ask you to believe (he pats the frozen railing)
it just pulls.
And in that moment, I am on the bridge,
man-made platform holding me up above the God-made platform of the frozen river,
his arm heavy around my shoulder
and stones in my hand,
pinning me to earth.
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