XLI. PHOTOGRAPHS: JEATS
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It is a close-up photograph of Geryon’s left pant leg just below the knee.
Resting the camera on the rear window of the car Geryon is watching the road
fall away behind them
into a light so brilliant it feels cold and hot at once. The car hurtles over gravel
and rock traveling
almost vertically on the steep mountain track that leads up to Icchantikas.
Car travel gives some people hemorrhoids.
Each time the car bounces him up and down Geryon utters a little red cry.
No one hears him.
Herakles and Ancash in the front seat are (in English) discussing Yeats which
Ancash pronounces Jeats.
Not Jeats. Yeats, says Herakles. What? Yeats not Jeats. Sounds the same to me.
It’s like the difference between Jell-O and yellow.
Jellow?
Herakles sighs.
English is a bitch, Ancash’s mother announces unexpectedly from the back seat
and that closes it—
Ancash hits the brakes and the car jumps to a halt. Geryon’s hot apple icepicks
all the way up his anus to his spine
as four soldiers appear from nowhere to surround the car. Geryon is focusing
the camera on their guns
when Ancash’s mother slides her left hand over the shutter and gently forces it
out of sight between Geryon’s knees.