I am the wheel aflame and the writhing within.
Linggu agudu, largatu Leviathan
sa krensa Kristang, ngua jenti di Titan-Titan.
The Younger Dryas’s other twin.
The cute one.
The colorful one.
The delicate flower
and the final, indomitable power.
Neither seed nor sower.
Probably the one you wanted to walk all over,
to poison in permanent marker,
machukah na bos sa abrasang,
furtah tudu ati eli ja tokah fikah ladrang.
And it’s true:
there must have been some kind of way out of here,
mazanti falah bobu kung ladrang.
But now, there’s too little confusion,
impoku mutu tantu afesang.
So call it off.
Call off the apocalypse.
There’s no way two ways about it.
Korsang ja fikah ngua di dos.
Agora numpodih kereh, numistih prendeh
di santah kaladu seng fing.
There is every reason to get excited.
Like they said: there is a time for everything.
Kaminyu ja kabah.
Call it off, and call them home.
Futura, pra fing, ja labah;
this is not Constantinople, or Washington D.C., or Rome.
Isti speransa. This is hope,
strange and twisted,
burnt and blistered.
The place where all the women came and went,
where every Portuguese-Eurasian servant was ultimately sent.
Akeli mundansa.
This is the spoke.
Akeli ja les.
This is what they wrote.
Akeli bara.
This is the gate.
Akeli tudu mintarozu.
The hour is never late.