ARGONAUT FETISH

it was not going to be like the books: resettlement after the 20** disaster was, as expected, a punishing task – we had to learn to begin our sentences by crossing off all of our vowels our tongues now were the gnarly skin of hybrid pigs 

it was not long after that we had to find a home in an exclusion zone that would somehow welcome us you see we were eager for congeniality no conviviality – remember silence like paint on a mouldy wall is depthless don’t forget to cross out the vowels 

stop breathing & stay silent this is how you uncoil back into the world the fake blood washes off upon contact with the sea water yet time is never to begin again learn how become a smack of jellyfish learn to exhale through their

bells yes this is a lambent wish for self-annihilation the light turning on and off again look for the thread bare shirt flapping inside an airless room; argonaut flesh drying in the sun is not a metaphor

by Theodoros Chiotis

Theodoros Chiotis is the editor and translator of the anthology Futures: Poetry of the Greek Crisis (Penned in the Margins, 2015). Other publications include Screen (with photographer Nikolas Ventourakis; Paper Tigers Books, 2017) and limit.less: towards an assembly of the sick (Litmus, 2017). His work has appeared in Litmus, Datableed, Adventures in Form, Austerity Measures, Shearsman, aglimpseof, amongst others. His project Mutualised Archives, an ongoing performative interdisciplinary work, received the Dot Award by the Institute for the Future of Book and Bournemouth University; he has also been awarded a High Commendation from the Forward Prizes for Poetry in 2017.