SENECA BASOALTO
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CATCH ALL THE FIRES
It is not for you to catch all the fires that find their flight to Guernica, the cinder settling on the palette after being coughed from the lung // this was your home, that which was swelling on the pasture of each breath you struggled to unearth how many hours were lost with the gazania now sharing the afterlife with the woven blanket laced by the crooked fingers of your sleeping grandmother who did not wake for the bombs when perched in a nest between your heart’s mouth and the yellow azulejo hatred will always find its way to steal what pieces are loose and falling from your flesh, but you must close your eyes when the flesh of those you love find fire, now you learn agur // or else your memory will stay behind to roam the roads where you once fell in love with boiled clay beneath the sun here, smell how the spelt becomes the bomb, but do not fix yourself before you flee // only the soul cannot be replaced, zure bihotza erre egingo da zer esanik ez
Basque: “zure bihotza erre egingo da zer esanik ez” your heart will be burned no matter what
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Volume 17 • 2022
