Tóth Krisztina: Babzsák

Rendeltem százliternyi tölteléket.
A kis golyók rugalmassága csökken,
ahogy egymással folyton összeérnek
és megtörnek, mint a sejtek a bőrben.

I ordered thirty gallons of new stuffing.
The little spheres lose their bounciness within
as they jostle around, constantly touching,
and break down, like the cells under your skin.

I suddenly found myself down on the floor,
after a few well-stuffed years, spine aching,
and figured, I’ll just fill it up once more
and stretch out the lumpy encasing.

Three days pass and my package arrives,
with a warning, that you certainly will
need help, to hold the bag open on two sides,
so you don’t spill the beans, as you fill.

Hard, no doubt, but impossible? Never.
My son came with me to the garage,
and as I was removing the cover,
he set about, the new filling to dislodge.

We struggled for hours, to no avail.
We were careful, yet we mainly missed
the bag, foamy pellets flying, epic fail,
settling all around us like theatrical mist.

And the bean bag filled up, little by little.
It happened to be his twentieth birthday:
My son, just a smidgen irritable,
continued, the encasing to overlay.

We kept cramming and shoving and tugging,
as he was running late, but stopped mid-flight,
I tried to shape the bag’s sides, groaning,
yet it persisted to put up a fight.

He had to get going now, without delay,
arrived safely, he texted to let me know,
while I wiped down the tightly stuffed overlay,
as the nurses wiped my blood, twenty years ago.