Tóth Krisztina: Beryx decadactilus

If it were all gibberish, as foreign as
umbrella palms in the dictionary,
distant as Tierra del Fuego on the map,
in my mind’s eye only, imaginary,
if there were between us a savage virgin land,
in its fresh waters ten-fingered fish lay,
I’d thumb the pages and happen upon
this confounding virgin language, I may,
we’d rumble like water in the bellies of hills,
dolina, uvala, polje* — you’d call to me,
but not as of the material world, rather
like a lexicon, flipped open randomly,
and I’d reply: fire baffle, flint flakes,
you’d think of lava rocks and sediment,
no story line, no longing for flesh and blood
or terra firma, no emotional impediment,
time imagined, we’d bathe peacefully
among ten-fingered fish, in lakes ephemeral,
floating out-of-body, caressed
— not by me, of course, just in general.