Inspired by development strategies,
Burdened with concerns of escalating inflation,
Blocked in the half-past-seven traffic jams,
Filled with the honking of thrombosed cars,
Occupied with big discounts on autumn’s collections—
This head,
The one I’m bringing home…
Every other day, near-death from migraines,
This head, with its genetic predisposition to baldness,
The one I’m carrying home through the crisp, bitter chill
Of an October evening— this head…
With Neanderthal cheekbones,
Homo sapiens’ pupils, Homo habilis’ jaw
And with the stubbornness of a Homo laborans,
With a moderately complicated open bite, this head,
Which I carry home with a dreamless sleep.
Sitting in the back row of bus 38…
Through pre-holiday promotions on sausages and tiles,
Through human-centered warnings,
Reminders, appeals, and instructions,
Down Baghramyan, Mashtots, Koryun,
Saryan, and Freedom Streets,
rolling steadily downhill toward home
This creative head.
With all its temporary documentation of the understander,
But immature yet,
more often lost than found,
This statistically average head,
The one I’ve been bringing home every day for three million years,
And yet, I still can’t manage to deliver—
Halfway there,
It suddenly pricks up…
It trembles like one who’s seen an angel,
Shuddering at the thought that,
Lost in the icy mist of some distant slope,
Lost in autumn’s cold and thick fogs,
Hidden in the yellowing leaves
Of a late-blooming peach tree,
There exists a sun-drenched peach,
A soft, golden peach,
Its fuzzy skin honey-sweet beneath,
A juicy peach unnoticed by the sharp eyes of harvesters—
A peach about which,
Even now, not a single, not a single song
Has been written in this world.
