I draw you out, faint voice, from rippled pages: a famished angler reeling in a fish, the kind that, in the folktale, grants a wish— a golden thing, imbued with living magic. Between us is the taut line of attention, imperiled by the current and the wind. Slowly but willfully, I reel you in….
Translated by Ming Di He wanted to write a poem as he crosses the street. He wanted to write a poem as he trots through the crowd buying and selling Spring Festival couplets. It’s almost a poem, but up on the treetop some partridges pop up, and they are shouting they are crying and…
Translated from the Belarusian by Hanif Abdurraqib and Valzhyna Mort Grandnanas, great grandmamas, great great grandparents,transparent, fairy, dressedin earth fluff, puffing into their palms,they perch on my ears and tweet:Here’s your field.Here’s your calendar.Sow, girl! I’m so for it. I farm.But in my field grow onlyred grass,green grief,that reek of guilt and shame and gray…
All the people at onceslip by unseenbetween your fingersin the silencethat distance makesThey are all thereexhaling their gasesin the companyof plants inhaling theirsThe mad roots scrambleafter water, soil and sunSome holes openas insects speakto the leaves
In the end I was not made for this; I have none of the pragmatic agnosticism of those who carry words, words, words, and yet return to themselves with joy and gladness. I am drowning in words, in clauses— in their present selves, the future promise and their haunting history; they stay with me unless…
Today I walked with two poets through a small forest.The bugs kept yelling questions. When I tried toanswer, they denied asking me the questions. The air isso wet here that it only knows how to touch my lipsassertively. The bugs are loudest behind me. Theysound like fractions of pain, like Agnes’s tree, which isvisible because…
And aren’t we all always jonesing for a way out or in, a better deal, a shorter distance to x, more y. Satisfaction is a shallow goal, counterfeit, but reassuring as a binky. Will Durant took credit for the maxim I stole for my title, but he stole it from Aristotle. We steal a lot….
Translated by Ming Di My body is a dovecote. Doves howl in my gut, flapping. I want them all to go, even though they hang in the air, wireless, and wait for a certain soul to receive them. Then, I return to earth an empty self, empty dovecote.
After Lucie Brock-Broido Am the midnightzone, pelagic and unstudied. Am classical, the heart’s distracted secretary. Was unbaptizedand addicted to sparks. Am horny for self-awareness,a slut for emotional work, and am still unsolved. Was anonymous, even under my nightgown,even in your hands. Was nailed tight,like the seam of a velvet couch. Was muddied with the river’s…
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