Bahtiyar Hidayet (Azerbaijan) "APPLE VODKA "

 

APPLE VODKA 

Mullah, this time

don’t shame me for being drunk.

You know it well—

thousands of generations ago,

our forefather was condemned

for taking a bite of an apple.

Since then,

we’ve been doomed

to live in this hell.

I, too, took revenge on apples.

First, I chopped them to pieces.

Then I imprisoned them in a barrel

until they rotted and began to stink.

But even that didn’t calm my rage.

I punished them

as if boiling them

in the infernal cauldron of hell.

Then I drank their tears.

I drank—

as if I were drinking blood.

I had become a vampire.

Now my head

is filled with the air of paradise.