METAMORPHOSES by Arvis Viguls – translated by Jayde Will


 
 
There was once a woman with a beard,
and a man who had breasts,
and yet another man with a boy
growing inside of him.
 
He showed his friends photos
from the ultrasound:
“See, that’s my boy,
see, look, there’s his little head!”
 
His friends put their hands on his stomach,
so they could feel how the little boy
was pounding with his fists from the inside.
wanting to get out of the man.
 
Meanwhile there was yet another man
with a worm growing inside him.
He showed his friends photos
from the ultrasound.
 
“When is the date?”
his friends asked.
“The worm and I will be inseparable,”
he said, “till death and also after that.”
 
There was a woman who could grow wings,
especially at those moments, when she
went to bed with her man,
who had a thick plume growing on his breasts.
 
When the wings had finally grown out,
the woman flew away from the man,
and strange things began to grow
inside him: sadness, loneliness, and pain.
 
 
 
Arvis Viguls
 
Jayde Will