Réka Nyitrai


The history of crying

We are trapped in the cave: Antigone and I. To dispel my fear, Antigone begins to ask various questions. Do you know of weeping mountains? Do you know of talking tulips? Do you know about the lead bands God uses to cover the mouth of poets? I tell her that I don't know any of this, but once I saw the devil rubbing salt into the wound of a mountain until the boulders on the mountainside began to weep.



Glass mouths
Dora believes that ghosts inhabit her mirror. During the day they are silent, but at night they come out of the mirror and play pranks on her: they put pebbles in her slippers, hide her favorite dress, cut the buttons off her shirts. However, once in a while, they also do good deeds: they wash up the dishes, transcribe the poems she composes in her sleep, block her landlord's calls. When the ghosts are kind to her, Dora treats them to ice cream. Yet, every time Dora parties with the ghosts, she's the one who ends up with her dress stained.



Stable of the stars
The ghost of a swan blooms inside a vase. Some of the flowers are small and white, others are large and blue. Some of them sing, while others roar. To infuse the sky with music, the migratory birds fly onward. In another life I shall follow their tracks, until I reach the stable of the stars.



Posthumous breeze
A swan is lost in a dream. The song of the stars is absorbed. The tears of the moon are held. A blue breeze ruffles my feathers. I am dead and my beloved ones are entombed in a pyramid of clouds. I am dead and all I want is to push my atrophied tongue into God's fur covered mouth.

Réka Nyitrai is a spell, a sparrow, a lioness's tongue — a bird nest in a pool of dusk. She is the recipient of a Touchstone Distinguished Books Award for 2020 for her debut haiku volume While Dreaming Your Dreams (Valencia Spain: Mono Ya Mono Books, 2020).

 
 

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