Issue 21: Daniel Borzutzky
Systemic Risk
You can analyze systemic risk
according to how many bodies live or die
If the system fails
the broken bodies
become invisible and/or hyper-visible
The people are being born and dying
They are enacting the invisibility
of the security system
through the exhibition of their naked bodies
I eat corrupted data
to keep my skin
from becoming transparent
I would rather be
a defect of culture
than a defect of data or character
What is not observed
gets more visible
in relation to the strength of the surveillance
It’s better to deprive
a few million people of food
than to pull the plug on the global economy
If the consumers don’t buy your product
then teach them the meaning of love
Quarantine 1
i ask the woman from Buenos Aires why did they stick you in the quarantine
i ask the man from Santiago why did they stick you in the quarantine
i ask the child from Guadalajara why did they stick you in the quarantine
i ask the entrepreneur from Guatemala City why did they stick you in the quarantine
i ask the poet from Montevideo why did they stuck you in the quarantine
i ask the teenage prisoner from Chicago why did they stick you in the quarantine
i ask the rabbi from Cleveland why did they stick you in the quarantine
i ask the refugee from El Paso why did they stick you in the quarantine
i ask the banker from New York City why did they stick you in the quarantine
i ask the cashier at Walmart why did they stick you in the quarantine
i need a loan
i can’t find a lender
i have no credit
they take my credit cards
they crown me with $8,000,000 worth of debt
they steal my identity
they understand i have a lapsed concept of myself
the data in my body is too clean
there are too many broken links in the network
they quarantine my search history
i sing colonize the fuck out of me tonight please baby
colonize the fuck out of me with your introductory lessons on civic responsibility
please be my silvery savior
translate the jive talk for me nice man in a banana republic suit nice lady with a blouse and pearls
translate what they over there are saying because i cannot understand their pain unless you place your body between his body and my body and talk about the repatriation of time the repatriation of blood the repatriation of vulnerability the repatriation of clouds the repatriation of the minerals you trade my body for the repatriation of the petroleum you trade my father for the repatriation of water the repatriation of the rituals of the washed-up borderless bodies
in the fecundity
in the rubble of the broken buildings
in the shame of the broken bodies
in the sewer tea in the mud tea in the spilled guts in the trunk full of hollow corpses
a man cuts off his face to save the rest of his body
a child sacrifices herself in order to save her parents’ lives
there is an idea about why it might be funny to have an old silver woman translate the sick man’s jive talk for the sake of the well-meaning folk in the service industry
there is an idea about the shape of the tornado when it funnels into and out of your mouth into and out of your nose your spine your lips your rectum
there is an idea about the institutionalization of genocide that can only be developed through the empirical destruction of the nation
the dead bodies call out to those who bury them
make sure the riot is clean make sure the riot is peaceful make sure the riot is beautiful make sure the pig roast is peaceful make sure the burning of the church is peaceful make sure the Jew-kill is peaceful make sure the dehydration of the immigrant is peaceful
we are here today to talk about the sky and all the things it has to offer to those whose bodies who will be infinitely compressed repealed reduced
don’t touch me in this world in this way in this breaking wallowing death street says the broken body to the silver savior who thinks he is the only one who can translate his pain
don’t touch me in this world in this way until they decide how many people need to die before they will finally assess my value
don’t touch me in this world in this way until the wind on my face is absent
Daniel Borzutzky’s latest poetry collection is Lake Michigan (Pitt Poetry Series, 2018). He is the author of The Performance of Becoming Human (Brooklyn Arts Press), recipient of the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry. His other books include Memories of my Overdevelopment (Kenning Editions, 2015); In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy (Nightboat, 2015), and The Book of Interfering Bodies (Nightboat, 2011).
His translation of Galo Ghigliotto’s Valdivia (Co-im-press) won the American Literary Translator’s Association 2017 National Translation Award. He has translated poetry collections by Chilean poets Raúl Zurita and Jaime Luis Huenún. He teaches in the English Department and Latin American and Latino Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Copyright © 2018 by Daniel Borztzky, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
