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Almost There

Almost There Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/common-knowledge/article-pdf/27/3/515/1301578/515keret.pdf by DEEPDYVE INC user on 30 March 2022 POETRY AND FI CTI ON Etgar Keret Translated by Jessica Cohen When I see a little boy throw a tantrum on the sidewalk because his parents won’t buy him an ice cream—I’m for him. When I watch a bronzed cop hassle an old drunk in the town square and ask for his papers—I’m against him. When I get woken up by a cat in heat yowling under my apartment window—I understand her. When I hear a siren tear through the night, I pray for the health of whoever is in the ambulance. I pray, without even believing in god. I wanted to be a new, modern man. I wanted to trap nature inside crowded zoos. I hoped to shed millennia of evolution like a snake sloughs its skin. To trade in my old fears for newer, more innovative ones. To replace my perpetual doubts with one single certainty: Life is not this blue-green planet. Life is me—and it’ll be over in a moment. Common Knowledge 27:3 DOI 10.1215/0961754X-9265353 © 2021 by Etgar Keret http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

Almost There

Keret, Etgar; Cohen, Jessica
Common Knowledge , Volume 27 (3) – Aug 1, 2021
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Copyright
Copyright © 2021 by Etgar Keret
ISSN
0961-754X
eISSN
1538-4578
DOI
10.1215/0961754x-9265353
Publisher site
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Abstract

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/common-knowledge/article-pdf/27/3/515/1301578/515keret.pdf by DEEPDYVE INC user on 30 March 2022 POETRY AND FI CTI ON Etgar Keret Translated by Jessica Cohen When I see a little boy throw a tantrum on the sidewalk because his parents won’t buy him an ice cream—I’m for him. When I watch a bronzed cop hassle an old drunk in the town square and ask for his papers—I’m against him. When I get woken up by a cat in heat yowling under my apartment window—I understand her. When I hear a siren tear through the night, I pray for the health of whoever is in the ambulance. I pray, without even believing in god. I wanted to be a new, modern man. I wanted to trap nature inside crowded zoos. I hoped to shed millennia of evolution like a snake sloughs its skin. To trade in my old fears for newer, more innovative ones. To replace my perpetual doubts with one single certainty: Life is not this blue-green planet. Life is me—and it’ll be over in a moment. Common Knowledge 27:3 DOI 10.1215/0961754X-9265353 © 2021 by Etgar Keret

Journal

Common Knowledge – Duke University Press

Published: Aug 1, 2021

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