By Flavius Covaci
I come from twitching hen necks laid
beneath my grandfather’s knife; pigs’
blood oozing with deadened life every
Christmas Eve in the backyard. I come
from the sun-dry, heat-cracked pavements
of Şezătoarei, the street where old ladies
moulded me from greasy sarmale
and love. From that navy perambulator
my great-grandmother rocked me in, cold
ham with sweetcorn in hand, ready
to take on the world: plimbă-mă, Buni, once
more. I am flames licking dirty rags at mid
night – when we play cards – until the sun
rise dries our eyes of tears of laughter. Crack
ing semințe open only to find nostalgic stories
stored inside (how my parents met; myths
about the snake in Mariana’s belly torn out
with a rusty blade; a possessed neighbour
that took flight yester-yesterday; Sabrina’s
nine cats all gone astray) beneath that willow
tree that still stands; the one that watched us
bet on yellowed Remi tiles until our coins ran out,
outside the house my parents built together –
before their love ran out. I come from the
spiked gates I climbed; from Tata Moșu’s
paralysed breath on the air as he groaned
Pică pruncu’ și vă bat; from deflated foot
balls we chased, running towards a past
that had not yet expired. From Doamna
Olga’s thin-stick chalk squeaking on that
blackboard: a palimpsest of our enduring
mistakes, of biscuits and apples and milk
in triangular cartons laid out on our desks.
From hurried footsteps when my cousins
and I got too close to the abandoned house –
E bântuită, zâne, spiriduși, fantome – as if
the ghosts hadn’t always lived inside our
minds. Now I wander the streets of
Oxford like blown black smoke, pretending
my heart doesn’t still beat to the rhythm
of those days gone by; as if I don’t still
fall asleep to the sound of my Nana’s
nightly prayer, as if part of me won’t
always be there.
Flavius Covaci (Flav) is a first-year English student at the University of Oxford, Mansfield College.
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