A Chestnut (Waiting in a Chest Pocket)
I
want to cry with chestnut tears.
I stand in silence,
Left for you here.
… for a sentence doesn’t sentence you to be a bride.
You can stitch me
into your chest pocket,
as if it were a waiting room.
There I’ll wait for your hand like for a train
never scheduled to arrive.
A chestnut may contain
more words that have hit the spot
and more days that haven’t languished into nights.
I am a pocketed memory, a leaf, a chestnut…
A transit passenger of the tired poetic tradition,
a puppeteer who pulls only strings
and whose guiding mission
is to stitch the entrance of my waiting room.
The space of your pocket feels so secluded.
No entrance, no exit, no room
even for a hand.
My desire runs like a train to you,
hitting against the rails,
my blood rolls in rivulets to you.
***
Ironing your shirts and articulating all comments and commandments,
A few words are left to form a question, separated by marks of punctuation,
Now even cactus spines seem delicate and dainty.
Past dreams flit in and out like ripe cherries,
Like wrinkles, embroidered on a christening gown, long and airy.
Relishing your thoughts, you fall asleep, feeling bare and empty.
What should the brother wear? (The repetition
Of death through myth?)
The bitter anger of a hand?
Ironing his shirts, she relies on intuition,
Articulating hot and steamy traces
With the flashing iron.
And traffic lights shine warmly like the light of a glowing worm,
Leaving an apple core
(stepping beyond the monastic tradition).
To meet someday.
Ironing his shirts, you are aware of the burnt sky.
She’ll find enough prayers in you
and in herself, too.
Ghetto
“A division for Jews,
An entrance and exit
Punished by death”
You rest your gaze on the dark line ahead,
cutting your thoughts through the barbed wire
and torn clothes,
and the wind of ire
takes off your hat and folds you
into a beggar’s pose.
Her dark hair
falls on her bones,
covered with skin,
as if with drapery.
And the mother feels
angry,
bent over her baby
who passed away a long time ago.
You’re enjoying the sunrise and
he awaits you on the corner,
holding the whip and the thistle.
You seem anxious and worried
about her burdened toes
that move slowly and heavily
with every breath that comes in and out
of her feeble body.
And you weep silently.
Translated by Natalya Kovaliova
Short link: http://thatis.me/~Pbrb4$B