::: SKIDROW PENTHOUSE :::

The airport is where the insane gather,
those who are confused about their path,
going and coming, smoking and praying,
lost in their computer screens.
There, the strange iron birds are flying.
People, like embryos, are sitting
in these birds’ wombs,
their belly-button cell phones
a temporary means of contact with Mother Earth,
to allow them to forget
their temporal location in the sky.
The airport is opium to the insane,
who flow from the bright shop windows
into the airport’s deep breathing lungs.
Like opium, they’re greedily sucking in the smell
that’s coming from the airport’s voluptuous body
and hallucinating.
The airport is a gigantic aquarium in their dreams
where people with fish fins
open their mouths
and look feebly at each other.
The airport is where the insane gather,
who can only remember
their temporal location on earth.

Nene Giorgadze
Translated from Georgian by Nene Giorgadze and Timothy Kercher