To S.B If I’m not dead, if somebody isn’t dreaming or imagining me, then I’m rocking back and forth and it’s cold. Back and forth. To the rhythm of the thing that for such a long time I’ve called heart. Back and forth. Without effort, to and fro. The difficult part is departing, leaving the […]
1. She walks by. Her gait grabs your attention. She is about to go onto the footbridge. At the last moment, she changes her mind. The speakers announce a train is about to enter the station. You look at the clock: almost nine pm. The train’s not yours. Time to kill. Nothing to read. The […]
from The Ep[is]odes: A Reformulation of Horace xiii The sky is rough, fierce with sound, as Jupiter launches rain and snow. From woods to sea, nothing but northern winds. Let’s celebrate the occasion, friends, before our blooming knees are shrouded and broken by age. By my order, let’s open the wine pressed in that consul’s […]
You park in front of the restaurant where you’d agreed to rendezvous. You met him on the plane. How often such chats filled the space of the hours of flight, sometimes against your will, sometimes with it. You weren’t the one who started the conversation. It was almost never you. It was the man on […]
Grandma’s Poems: 5. Sex in an Apartment Building “My neighbours make love every night!” I complain, itching to give her all the juicy details. The woman’s moans and the man’s grunts sneak under my quilt stitched with maple leaves of every colour, hop along my penguin and iceberg-adorned pyjamas, wet my skin intoxicated by cheap […]
The Naked Man Naked, I run towards you. I’ve been through a lot but I’m no napalm-girl. There is something dangling between my legs. I’m in my mid-forties and overweight. You watch unmoved as I run in your direction. Try to distill at least a little compassion—some curious, tiny interest in me. Hug me, when […]
Translator’s Note: This work represents an attempt at a true bilingual poem. There is no actual translation present. When I attempt to write concurrently in my two native languages, I select wording that transfers well across the cognitive-perceptual filters that languages create (which is something that only multilinguals and linguists can truly grasp). […]
BRÂNCUŞI AND THE BIRD the sculptor puts his hands on the red oak block before him, meant to be woman, eve, but jumps back, acrid scent infusing the plaster workbench ars—dalta-ţi cade din mînă burnt the moment his calloused palms meet the wood. the oak, scarlet […]
Death We shrouded Father’s body, which could not wash itself. We carried you to the church where you used to step boldly inside for mass at dawn everyday with your arthritic legs. We carried you all the way to the grave you couldn’t walk to by yourself and laid you carefully inside your home. […]
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