Poetry

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, dressed in 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 only…

All the people at once slip by unseen between your fingers in the silence that distance makes They are all there exhaling their gases in the company of plants inhaling theirs The mad roots scramble after water, soil and sun Some holes open as insects speak to 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 to answer, they denied asking me the questions. The air is so wet here that it only knows how to touch my lips assertively. The bugs are loudest behind me. They sound like fractions of pain, like…

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 midnight zone, pelagic and unstudied. Am classical,   the heart’s distracted secretary. Was unbaptized and 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…

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.  …