Translations
“Untitled [Maybe you know]” and “Untitled [I wave at you–]” by Lyudmyla Diadchenko, trans. from the Ukrainian by Padma Thornlyre
[untitled]Maybe you know I know you know you are me.Maybe I know you know I am lost.Snow rhymes with sky and hunches its shoulders.The cold builds walls like Qin Shi Huang. Our evenings reenact Matisse’s dances,A mediocre melody that should break an octave higher.Maybe you know I know with whom you are cheating.And after Matisse’s …
“Sea and Stone” by Elske Kampen, trans. from the West Frisian by David McKay
Sea and Stone Come into my room and see, I am not there.My cardigan, still body-warm, is draped over the chair.I have lent myself to someone in a T-shirt, someone witha boy’s sharp teeth. How he pulls off his shirt, withhis eyes closed or open, I want to know. How sweet his tonguetastes, how hard …
“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 …
“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, …
“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. …
