If you’ve been on this list for a few Aprils now, you might recall in 2008, Valzhyna Mort’s Factory of Tears became the first bilingual Belarusian-English book of poetry ever published in the United States. This is another selection from that collection.
What would I wish for
to be a small freckle on the wind’s nose
to ride in a convertible
beside a middle-aged man
a teenager will do
it’s as if everything that has happened
is nothing but Customs which you have to pass through
in order to get into summer
god has tossed a coin
inside me
as if I were a pond
and made a wish
and lingered in the air
and everything belongs to me but hope
and the mountains are kneeling like runners at the starting line
their green t-shirts billowing in the wind
then the mountains are gigantic tortoises
and then he will offer to leave me
the color of his skin is
like the color of the sun at dusk
and the road is parting in front of the wheels
like many grasshoppers as it rushes ahead of us
and like god’s stray eyelashes
the stars are falling, more light! more!
god has no time to make a wish
all he can do is cry out faster! faster!
it’s impossible to fall asleep next to this man
at night all that’s left of my body
is the music of grasshoppers
Poet Valzhyna Mort was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 15, 2008.