Take a Body and Replace It with Another Body

Abstract

Take a Body and Replace It with Another Body Daniel Borzutzky (bio) Take a word and replace it with another word This is the most miserable place I have knownTake a word and replace it with another word This is the most miserable life I have knownTake a verb and replace it with another verb The river swallowed my face my mouth my body my arms my hands my legsTake a verb and replace it with another verb The river loved my face my mouth my body my arms my hands my legsTake a noun and replace it with another noun The authoritative body loved my face my lips my teeth my tongue he loved meTake a body and replace it with another body, take a verb and replace it with another verb [End Page 38] The bureaucrat killed my face my lips my tongue my teeth he killed meTake a blank and replace it with another blank The blank blanked my blank my blank my blank it blanked me The wrong face might kill youA certain change might be possible if the wrong face kills youA certain change might be inevitable if the wrong face doesn't kill youYou think you drowned in the river but really it was the city that killed youYou think you are the body that drowned in the river but you are dead and you do not get to control the circumstances surrounding your disappearanceTake a word and replace it with two words You do not get to have feelings about the circumstances surrounding your disappearanceTake a body and replace it with another body I do not get to have feelings about the circumstances surrounding my disappearanceTake an adjective and replace it with another adjective [End Page 39] I do not get to have feelings about the circumstances surrounding your disappearanceTake a verb and replace it with another verb, take a noun and replace it with another noun You do not get to question the circumstances surrounding my reappearance It was a day he knew he would die an unspectacular death in the river of venomous alonenessIt was a night they knew they would die a spectacular death at the hands of the paramilitary nationalists who were armed by the secret policeIt was an afternoon they knew they would survive and be forced to persist in a world where they'd rather be deadEnvy leaked from the mouth and vengeance dripped from the eyeballsPetroleum dripped from the teeth and plastic straws were shoved into the nostrilsHe gave his child a kiss on the foreheadHe gave the bank a body that once loved himParentheses but in reality it was hard to have feelingsParentheses and in fantasy it was even harder to have feelings [End Page 40] He disappeared unspectacularly into the blank of the American nightTake a body and replace it with another body I disappeared unspectacularly into the blank of the American nightTake a verb and replace it with another verb, take a noun and replace it with another noun I bloomed unspectacularly into the debt of the American night [End Page 41] Daniel Borzutzky daniel borzutzky is the author of Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018, among other works. He received the National Book Award in 2016. His translation of Galo Ghigliotto's Valdivia won the National Translation Award. Copyright © 2021 Yale University