hiromi suzuki

on

Wonderful Life


We have been strangers with each other who lived in the darkness of the culvert for a long time. Cracks broke in the wall. Because the inundation reached to our knees, we decided to dismantle the bed and head for the ground with foods and daily necessities on the board. There was a bridge about to broken. We saw a small white light such as the sunlight. An acrobat who was poor at acrobatics shouted and led us.

― We are eighteen people in all, but only a few can ride on a bridge in the flood. First, four people go one by one. Four people stand taking in the same interval on the bridge and six people hand the baggage to the bridge from the boat. We, remaining eight people walk with baggage as light as possible on the bridge carefully. ―

Biscuits which got damp in a can. Book which became worn-out with drops of water. (A postcard fell from the pages and floated on my feet, but it flowed to far the tunnel.) Blanket which smells of mold. Flashlight which depleted battery. Radio which listened to Frank Sinatra's Polka Dots and Moonbeams repeatedly. (No, throw it away. Because the radio waves do not arrive anymore.) Life insurance policy which no recipient. Teddy bear which lost the button of one eye. All my property.

An acrobat using unreliable parallel bar walked last on the bridge. While feeling nostalgia about our long solitary lives in the darkness.

By the way, I wonder why we had been forgetting that the gate of the tunnel was a manhole. When the first four people lift a lump of iron with the forces that are left a little, there is a dark forest of the high-rise apartments under construction over the ground. I recognize for the first time that the small white light we saw in the darkness of tunnel is an electric signboard flickering on the wall of the building before demolition. It says ― Here Is your wonderful Life! ―.









hiromi suzuki is a poet, artist living in Tokyo, Japan. The author of Ms. cried, 77 poems by hiromi suzuki (kisaragi publishing, 2013), logbook (Hesterglock Press, 2018) and INVISIBLE SCENERY (Low Frequency Press, 2018). Her works are published internationally in Otoliths, BlazeVOX, Empty Mirror, Hotel, Burning House Press, DATABLEED, MOONCHILD MAGAZINE, talking about strawberries all of the time, Mookychick, Coldfront, and 3:AM Magazine. More work can be found at hiromisuzukimicrojournal.tumblr.com.
Twitter : @HRMsuzuki