Anti-History
by Genta Nishku

                                                                                                                                                                                            With lines adapted from Muriel Rukeyser’s 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 “Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)”
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   and Daša Drndić’s novel Trieste

It is the beginning of the century:
my neighbors live parallel lives 

in one, there are [             ], and 
in the other, [        ] on credit at

the corner store. The examples 
are crude because they are true.

“We need history, not memory,”
he said. It was well received, 

I can report. Everything happens
at once. What will we learn about

history today? Who will teach us
to remember? Detached, not dis-

embodied from myself, I search 
for truth. Or rather, the moment

when memory and history were 
not separate. It is the beginning 

of the century. Another century 
of world wars. I find language 

asleep. Inadequate, as they say. 
But I am here in my body, as 

you are in yours. We listen. 
We record the story. It is quiet.

“We live in history,” another 
said. It was the aftermath, and

I looked for you: your silent face,
wished, again, for the beginning.

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Genta Nishku is a writer, translator and literary scholar. Her writing can be found in publications such as the Kenyon Review, new_sinews, Bennington Review and Washington Square Review, among others. Find her at www.gentanishku.com.