Poetry
Contrapunctus
Contrapunctus “[Bach’s] health became so precarious that he was forced to abandon work on [The Art of Fugue]. . . . One day [near the end of his life], without warning, Bach regained his vision. But a few hours later, he suffered a stroke; and ten days later, he died.” —Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, …
Naked Night in the Cold Room
Naked Night in the Cold Room after Picasso’s “Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon” Nine naked vacant eyes wild as almonds in a field of trees. I swear their stare resembles mine. Middle girl leaning against daybreak, a death-blue glimmering velvet. She looks like me—but more & more. Torso as a stark hollow, elbow the shard of oak …
Terror
TerrorToday the 19-year anniversaryof the war on us. I know not to dig for long. I catch my reflection in profile and don’t think terror. My face a mountain, my face full of tall pines, volcanoface, my face without anynefarious intentions, my facethe color of the sky in LAthe color of wildfire, my face rock-brown, …
Grey Speaks & Sonnet for My Father’s Final Bus
Grey SpeaksAfter Ghayath AlmadhounWhen silence turned color, my grandma sipped black tea, a glass in her hand, a gilded tray beside her. The sugar cubes, I said. She did not hear me. Drank it bitter, hemlock-cold. When the door slammed open, no one entered but the wind. She said, It’s silence—the tongue of mystics, angels, …
“Milk for my mother” by Irina Nechit, trans. from the Romanian by Mihaela Moscaliuc
Milk for my motherSoldiers had occupied the rooms and the porch,killed the last chickens,eaten the pigeons and sparrows,emptied the dugouts of provisions,the corn meal was out,and so were the potato peelings,the four young children did not leave the top of the wood stoves all winter until the morning they heard screams in the yardand sprinted …
A Mother Resists Death
A Mother Resists Deathafter Carrie Mae Weems, 2020She was smiling, arms stretched wide, like Jesus,at the factory, surrounded by fabric and workers. Life is beautiful, she said, and I don’t have to die. At the factory, surrounded by fabric and workers,she disrobed in front of the camera, eyes to the roof. I don’t have to …
Ineluctable Modality of the Visible & Dear Lucia—
Ineluctable Modality of the Visible after Mai Der Vang Let’s assume you do not know about Lucia Joyce. Let’s assume you read one of her father’s early books in school. Perhaps you love the last paragraph of “The Dead” or once identified with Stephen Daedalus. Let’s assume you have not seen Lucia’s photograph. That you do not know …
“Ars Amandi” by Ștefan Manasia, trans. from the Romanian by Clara Burghelea
Ars AmandiA girl shall come to lighten my flesha soft wildling, a silent killer.And tracing the pattern of his heart(that has been infuriating him since he was four)Manasia will come out unarmed(the butterflies carry menacing signs)confidently stepping into the blue spot(moon the size of a little coinnearly buried in the sand)and the girl shall caress …
“Genealogy” by Sylvie Kandé, translated from the French by Nancy Naomi Carlson
Genealogy Happy is he who like this ancestor bequeaths to an island well his name THE BUCKET would bang against the walls of the wellas if sounding each beat of its diveand weighty descent into the bowels of time its return in a splash like a prodigal child Cool and sweet the collected water would …
“Autumn” by Nikolai Gumilyov, trans. from the Russian by Oksana Kobzarenko and Claire Muraoka
AutumnOrange-red sky…A gusty wind movesa bloody cluster of rowan.I am chasing the running horsepast greenhouse glass, old park gratingand the swan pond.Shaggy, red dog running next to me,dearer than my brother.I will remember herif she dies.The clatter of hooves quickens,dust rises higher.It is difficult to chase a horseof pure Arabian blood.You have to sit down, …
Dark Mother
Dark MotherI am one part antlers on a walland two parts dreaming. I am unmooredand loosed upon the lake. The melonballer scoops out my thoughtsand scatters them like blowing snow.My mother used to say that allmemories were ghosts, that we werehaunted by some incapacity to forget.I am two parts bottomlandsand three parts green muck clingingto …
“Life on Three Wheels” by E.M. Palitha Edirisooriya, trans. from Sinhala by Kasun Pathirage and samodH Porawagamage
Sunday Lent is for penance, in gratitude to salvation brought forth by Lord Jesus. Near the church on Palm Sunday, they gave me a tiny coconut leaf cross. I respect all religions, so I placed the cross above the taxi meter. The Passion, Resurrection, God’s will, love of all beings. Lent ends with Easter Mass. …