like the industrial estate bird argazkiak / photos: david aprea testua / text by: uxeta labrit
irudia
in couple of hours
and half a dozen cigarettes,
the birds that cling to the sky
on the cement and asbestos roofs
will start singing.

after hardly sleeping they get out of bed,
go to the loo and,
today too,
I can see they’re going to have a tough day
as i cover my armpits with shaving foam.

like a criminal going back to the scene of the crime,
I sometimes go back at night
to the industrial estate’s scalextric circuit
to drive my car.

later on,
when i go into the dole office,
my head high, proud, after 26 years signing on, godammed!
the person on the other side of the table will tell me again that all the time ahead of me’s just for me.

but we both know
that i’m too scared to make use of that time, like the industrial estate bird
that doesn’t know
whether winter ever ends.