Translation

Translated by Ming Di He wanted to write a poem as he crosses the street.He wanted to write a poem as he trots throughthe crowd buying and selling Spring Festival couplets.It’s almost a poem, but up on the treetopsome partridges pop up, and they are shoutingthey are crying and shouting. They skip from one camphor…

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…

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, andwait for a certain soulto receive them. Then, I return to earth an empty self, empty dovecote.

Translated by Ming Di  Mirrors in the elevator from all directions—shed light on those with ghosts in their hearts. A man and a woman lower their heads, admitting no guilt.There are two other people behind them defending them from the mirror.They seem to come from different cities, years. But here, in the elevator, they arriveat…

Translated by Carolyn Forché This is the sign for “human”and this is the sign for “god.”This is the thought that life actuallylies outside the one who lives it—yes,that life would continue even if we did notdo so, as if it werea large tenement where some movein and others move out. I’m walkingthrough the rooms on…

Translated by Carolyn Forché The curtain moved gently,dawn spilled milk over the city.I never saw you again like that.

Translated by Gustavo Pérez Firmat Life is too short. We’re always running late.Not enough days in our livesto learn anything. You wake up,you hug your girlfriend,you have breakfast, you work,you eat, you sleep, you watch a movieand you don’t even have timeto read Seneca and convince yourselfthat there’s nothing in the worldthat can’t be fixed….

Translated by Gustavo Pérez Firmat She gave me a brief, hard hug,one of those you feel downto your toenails, a mortal leapinto life, an incandescentcaress, the kind that doesn’t lastbut scalds, sudden and fleeting:a spell rather than a squeeze.To be embraced like this oncein a while is irrefutable proofthat, sometimes, life providesarguments against loneliness.

translated by Jhumpa Lahiri I found a notebook filled with poems, written in Italian, in my desk inRome. I am trying to understand who wrote them. It may be a womannamed “Nerina,” which is the only thing written on the cover of thenotebook. I’d like to know forcertain who ate that pearperfectly, with such respect,leaving…